This update's chicken photo bomb is Amelia. But we'll come back to the chickens in a little bit. Let's start with the garden. It's growing very well!! A raised garden was definitely the way to go because there haven't been too many weeds. All the plants are getting big. Most don't have fruit/veggies on them yet. There are a couple of green tomatoes. But the strawberries... They've taken off!
Next on the homestead tour is the chickens. The big girls are doing great. They are now 5 months old. Henrietta started laying a month ago. Betsy and Amelia just started laying. I actually witnessed Betsy's first or second egg. She was pacing the front of the run when she let out a cackle and a tiny shell-less egg fell from her. Poor thing probably had no idea what was happening!!
The babies are now 6 weeks old. We added a newbie, a Columbian Wyandotte, from a local farm. She is 5 weeks old. A couple weeks ago we moved the babies out into a nursery run. They love the outdoors and I love how they aren't making a mess of my house.
We'll have more babies soon! This week I am expecting a shipment of white and red bantam Silkie eggs and a friend has been collecting bantam Frizzle eggs for me. Time to break out the incubator again!!
Speaking of eggs, here's a look at some of the eggs the girls have left for us lately:
Last but certainly not least is the rabbits. As I mentioned in a past post, Cottontail turned out to be a he, not a she and he got his sister pregnant. Mopsy had 9 kits but unfortunately, none made it. I believe it was just a case of first time rabbit mommy not knowing what to do. We wanted to have 2 does so I started searching and found a beautiful Californian doe that is right about the same age as the rest of rabbits. We named her Flopsy and she's doing wonderful. Once she was settled in we bred the rabbits; Mopsy with Peter, Flopsy with Cottontail. They are due tomorrow! I'm quite excited! We did everything right this time so I'm hoping for a good outcome. If Flopsy proves to also be a bad first time mom, we'll try to foster her kits over to Mopsy. I gave the girls their nest boxes on Saturday. Flopsy did a little rearranging and that was about it. Mopsy did major rearranging including removing a lot of the bedding. She keeps hopping in it and messing with it all. Yesterday she did a lot of panting. She did that right before she gave birth last time so I'm on baby watch now!
Here are the pretty mamas!
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