Author: fitwithwendylee@gmail.com

A Piece of Peace on the Farm

After getting the interior fence in, things have settled down A LOT in the chicken yard. Atlas is much happier with his freedom to run and not be confined to his crate while we are gone or cannot be watching. The chickens seem quite content – although Dominique the Barred Rock decided to take a flight into Atlas territory the first evening when we fed Atlas. She was a little perturbed to not have access to his dish, I guess. LOL!

Two of the Black Stars did find a gap in the fencing under the coop for us. I was so surprised that day when they started carrying on with their distress calls. At first we assumed they had flown out, but when we put them back in we watched them immediately go back to the gap and exit. Noted. Fixed.

One thing the Black Stars escape showed us is that our 50+ pound livestock guardian is still very much a PUPPY. He may not look so much like a puppy anymore, but he sure wanted those birds to play with. My mom says perhaps he just knew they belonged inside the fence and was doing his job. I’m going with puppy on this one.

All in all, it has been quiet and peaceful with the critters. It has made me realize how much more time I have to do things around and in the house when I am not out with Atlas on his leash worried that he’ll have to stay too much of the day in the crate. I’ve actually gotten to clean house (yay!), start – and finish – a sewing project within a week (found some neat rooster-motif fabric at Jo-Ann’s Columbus Day sale!), start making bread for our family, continue working on my quilt that I started in 2002, and take an afternoon to head to out for an impromptu trip to the Nashville History Festival!

We did have a little scare last week with the baby chicks. With all the rain we had, it turns out the CamperCoop™ was not providing the protection from dampness that was needed. The little ladies were struggling, and we were worried about coccidiosis. We brought them in for several days to dry out and give them some medicine. They are thriving again, and we are still keeping them inside at night, but have refreshed the coop and are letting them enjoy these sunny days outside.

I will really be glad for the chicks to be big enough to start incorporating them in the main chicken yard/coop. We made a Pet Porter tunnel in the garage (two of them end to end with a chicken wire pass through) to give them more space when they are in at night. They seem to have taken a growth spurt while they were recuperating… they don’t all fit in one dog crate any more. Ryan has to go in and retrieve them one at a time in the morning so we can move them out, but it is worth it for them to stay healthy!

Until next time… we are staying busy here on the farm! Here are some pics from our adventures of late (and yes, I realize I didn’t include any Atlas pics this time… these are more about non-chicken/dog projects 😉

Of Slinkys and Revolving Coop Doors

Wow! I didn’t realize I had not posted an update all month. It has been quite busy around here indeed. For the humans, anyway.

A little front-porch-sittin. Where I come from.
A little front-porch-sittin. Where I come from.

Atlas has kept us busy with his puppy-ness. He has developed a taste for the feathers of our red hen and cannot be left alone at all with the chickens. So there is a lot of crate time along with a lot of leash time. That translates to a lot of time I am out in the yard walking him around instead of being inside cleaning, cooking, teaching, etc. So I hope you’ll forgive the lack of blogging 🙂

The poor red girl is a bit lacking in the tail feather department these days.
The poor red girl is a bit lacking in the tail feather department these days.

We have decided to make a semi-permanent interior fence that will allow the chickens to leave their coop and have a decent sized-run while allowing Atlas to have the perimeter of the yard to patrol and run somewhat free without the temptation of red feathers.

She was a beautiful hen… now she has a very stubby point to her tail, and I am grateful that he only caused moderate skin damage. And she still faithfully gives us a beautiful brown egg every day, so she’s only broken on the outside, I guess.

So, you’ve read this far and are wondering, “Why on earth did she title this post ‘Of Slinkys…’?” Well, a funny thing happened when we were trying to run the new fence this week. We were letting Atlas run while we were all out there working on the fence. I had finished up getting the t-posts in and Jackson was going to start cutting pieces of wire for me to tie the chicken wire on with. Problem was, he didn’t quite realize how to open the package and broke the back off. We got it situated, and were able to work with it, but it didn’t quite close all the way.

Puppy move #1: Atlas snatched a pre-cut piece of wire and took off. He thought the shiny pieces were quite fun. Nevermind how dangerous the really could be, they are pretty and fun to toss!

Puppy move #2: Atlas snatched the lid of the box of fence staples we were using to attach the wire to the trees. Needless to say, there was a pile of staples on the ground and a box half way across the yard before we got it retrieved.

By this point, I am NOT having fun. I know in the back of my mind that it should be funny, but I really wanted to get the fence done before it started raining again. Did I mention it has rained this ENTIRE week??! I’m a bit waterlogged. But, Mom and I got a little chuckle by reminding ourselves it would be funny later. Right, when I write about it. That is how it becomes funny. To me, anyway. Don’t know how funny you will all find it, but maybe it’ll bring a little smile to picture the comedy that went on in my yard that afternoon 🙂

Puppy move #3: This was the grand finale, for sure. I set the hammer, wire cutters, and the roll of baling wire down to go out of the yard to get one more post to place on the fence line. I barely got out of the yard, and I looked back to see Atlas running up the yard with the whole roll of wire in his mouth! I scampered to get back in the yard and get to him, but he dropped it on the ground before I could get to him. I was momentarily in awe of how it looked like a Slinky laid over on its side as it lay there on the ground. I reached to get it, and he picked it up. “Where?” you might ask. Right. In. The. Middle. And took off running down the yard.

If you’ve ever overstretched a Slinky, you know how hard it is to get it back the way it is supposed to be. Impossible. Well, when you picture Atlas running across the yard with about 100′ of rolled up wire streaming out on either side of him, you can imagine how this story will end.

Jerry managed to get half of it back in the packaging so that it would feed properly. I’d say that is some sort of miracle. The other half has been rewound onto a block of wood for future use.

All-in-all, this could have been much worse, and much less funny. It would be funnier if I had pictures, but that just wasn’t happening.

Obligatory vet visit pic
Obligatory vet visit pic

We did get Atlas to the vet for his last round of puppy shots. He weighed in at a whopping 49.1 pounds (4.5 months old). I keep telling myself that he is not unlike my tall children… looks like he should be more mature than he can be expected to be. I trust the breed, and I trust that his brain and instincts will catch up to his size. Hopefully soon.

I haven’t forgotten the revolving doors.

Did I mention the rain? I really have felt like a Pacific Northwesterner this week (although definitely not a native one… I don’t think I could do this for months on end!).

Atlas was in his crate one afternoon this week, and it was close enough to dusk that I wanted to just let the chickens get in the coop before letting him out instead of taking him out on the leash. One of the joys I have found in having chickens is being able to just watch them as they go about their daily duties. I was just watching them milling about and then they start hopping one-by-one onto the ramp (they don’t walk up from the bottom) and into the coop. All but one black star were in, and then it started. Red poked her head out and out she came. One or two more came out. The pecked around a while and then started going back in. And out. And in. And finally, all 6 were in. I quickly shut the door, and let Atlas out.

While watching all of this, I was commenting to Atlas about how I didn’t remember installing a revolving door in this coop. He didn’t think it was funny. He just wanted out.

Incidentally, it is nice having a dog out there for when you have these conversations. Otherwise, it might seem like I was talking to myself. Talking to the dog is much better, right?

Well, the sun is out this morning, so I am going to get busy. Today we finish the inner fence and set the dog free(er). Enjoy some more pics from the farm (including a shot of the finished inner fence since that happened before I got pics uploaded to this post 🙂

Chaos Reigns

It has been nuts around here. Every time I think we are getting into a rhythm of sorts, it goes haywire.

As I reported earlier, all the critters did admirably well while Ryan and I were gone on our weekend jaunt down to Florida. Then, Tuesday morning, Atlas decided that 4 months old would be a splendid time to go through a regression.

I went downstairs to feed everyone and let the Black Stars out of the coop, and Atlas was laying at the gate with our Red Star between his paws, mouthing at her feathers!

It's a rope! I promise!
It’s a rope! I promise!

It has been a week of correction, crating, and leash time interspersed with times of freedom thinking that all was going to be ok only to have him go back to chasing (and catching!) again. He seems to have decided that it is real fun to catch the “old guard” (Dominique or Red Star) as they come out of their tree roost in the morning. I even caught him stalking them as they started their descent while I was out in the yard one morning!!

Last night, Jerry and I decided to get them and put them in the coop for a week of coop training to get them to where they would roost indoors finally – in hopes that they would seem more “normal” to Atlas again.

That was great, but then I relented and let everyone out this morning. I couldn’t see making the Black Stars stay in all that time when they have been doing what they should. Instead, we limbed the tree that the old guard has been using so that it is a MUCH higher flight to get to the roosting branch.

It was kinda sad watching them pace and cluck at dusk tonight, but they eventually made the decision to sleep indoors (YAY!). The Dominique did make one valiant running leap/flight attempt to reach the limb, but she gave up shortly after that.

Then, it seems as though Atlas decided to try and be a herding dog. He laid quietly by the gate while all the coop entry shenanigans were taking place – up until it was the Dominique’s turn to finally go in, then he was stalking her almost like he was trying to round her up!

I’ll tell ya, I was pretty happy to close that coop door tonight! I am hoping that tomorrow night will be more natural for the old guard to go inside. Now, it is just a mystery what tomorrow will bring. I feel pretty certain I don’t have to worry about any Pyr feather plucking before I get down to the yard at least!

SO…. my question to the masses is… Are there any Great Pyrenees being used as Livestock Guardians that are only protecting chickens??? Does everyone out there also have goats/sheep/etc. to help keep the Pyr company? I’m wondering if Atlas is just lonely/bored. I’m not ready for goats, infrastructure-wise. I guess I could put my boys on shifts to occupy the dog during the day…

Until next time… Here are some pics from around the farm: