Pet sitting the favorites!

'Hey K, want to take care of the chickens again for a while and also get the precious goods from there?' Heck, that sounds like music to my ears actually, as I really enjoy hanging around with the chickens (even though I would not necessarily would want to have them for myself) and really don't mind putting the effort in there.

See a couple of years back a couple of these chickens from the previous set were snatched in the night by some predator, and that means no more walking in and out for the chicks in the night. Not cool if animals are snatched, but that is what you get with the woods closeby.

That means locking them into their little henhouse at sunset and letting them out in the morning which does take a bit more effort. But if that keeps them safe in the end...That isn't so much of an effort actually.

She's got personality

Honestly, these chickens are fun. They brabble a bit when you come walking in and you can spot their enthusiasm which raises in pitch whenever you come closer. These girls are happy to start walking and picking little stuff outside and they also love to eat all kinds of food scraps. (damn I almost don't have enough foodscraps for the worms, making the veggie stock and feeding these chickens on the daily).

They also follow you around while walking there, which to me was a bit scary in the beginning because I didn't know if they liked the fact that I was inside 'their' house because I was going to feed them, or if they were following be to chase me out of their territory.

I still like the idea of that they like to see me ;)

Egging on

What is also nice is what comes as an added bonus to taking care of chickens, is that there are also some eggs to find here and there.

These eggs are interesting on that behalf as you can really notice the difference between super market eggs and these ones. First difference, they are gigantic!

Second of all, if the chicks were eating good you can notice that the egg shell is rock solid compared to supermarket eggs and almost difficult to crack.

Now these days the chicks aren't eating massively, maybe because it still is a bit like winter here. Because they aren't eating to much, they are also not getting enough calcium in which means I also found some hick-ups in there,

I found a 'wind egg' with hardly any scale earlier in the week, and also I found a cracked eggs where one of the chicks was sitting on. When I came back...the cracked egg was gone. Eaten by mom I guess?

That is the thing with being the chick-sitter... I have no idea if all of this is right. But the girls look happy and are super active so I guess everything is fine.

I even found some other guests on the way in, ducks in the pond? Are you guys lost?

So at the moment my mornings have a lot of animals in there. Walking the dog, feeding the chicks, ducking the ducks. Fun stuff!