This week has seemed to drag by. I am not sure if it is just my Spring fever, but I would have definitely preferred to be working on the homestead this week instead of in an office!
The chicks have continued to grow and begin their transformation into hens, all but one fuzzy little girl. One of our Polish is a tiny little runt and has not grown at all since we brought her home. She is getting adult feathers, but her size has remained unchanged. I was worried she might not make it, but she is active and feisty and besides being small, appears to be healthy.
The girls got an upgrade on their brooder box this week. They now have roosting poles to perch on. It is amazing to me how intense animals’ instincts are. They have been completely confined and have never seen adult chickens, yet they know to scratch at the ground for food, and roost in the evenings for safety.
These instincts are such an interesting phenomenon, it makes me wonder if humans didn’t have so much outer (and inner for that matter) noise, how much different this world would be; if we relied more on instincts, instead of what was presented to us via media or other sources.
On a trip to Ireland when I was a little girl, a gray haired, Irishman told me a story about a study done with a family of rabbits. The mother rabbit was left in a room with a heart monitor on and her litter of kits (baby rabbits) were taken in a submarine deep down below the water. At various intervals, the kits were killed, one by one, and the times documented. When the submarine emerged, they compared the documented times the kits were killed, to the mother’s heart tracing. They found that at each time one of her kits passed away, their was a noticeable jump in her heart rate. Whether this a real study, or one made up by an old Irishman, it raises some interesting thoughts about the strength of instincts.
This weekend brings a mad dash to haul and unload several truck beds full of dirt, complete our garden, and finish the Chicken Palace run. We still don’t have a delivery date for the coop yet, but I was promised by the company to know by the end of the day when our coop would arrive.
The breeder who could possibly have Polish Frizzle chicks says the chicks are too young to distinguish the frizzled from the smooth (they need to be at least a week old), so I am patiently waiting to see if he has any Frizzles we can bring home. Frizzled chickens are the potential offspring of a frizzled and smooth feathered chicken, and they are a very rare occurrence.
Along with Spring brings several new arrivals to my family. My sister and her husband will welcome their fifth child, and my good friend and her husband welcome their first child home. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of these precious new little ones.
Spring brings new projects, new hopes and new life-such an exciting time of year to be here on the homestead.
Until next time…
