Fiacré's spade: Summer pasture

Just after sunrise on Tuesday morning, I saw a tom turkey strutting and fanning in the middle of the field. For whom? I saw no other living creature. I got out the binoculars and finally spotted a hen over by the willows. She must have been a looker, judging from the tom’s display. She left off foraging and headed for him. He renewed his efforts. I went for my camera, hoping to catch a romantic scene. When I returned to the kitchen a moment later, she had walked right past him. Unrequited love.

Tom, still in courtship display (facing left), is completely ignored by a hen (left) who walked right past him

A few mornings later, there were a number of toms and hens on the north field, but I was already late leaving for work. No time for pictures.

Terry finished putting chicken wire around the orchard. During the week, he moved Coop 2 and positioned it facing east as per my request. Last year, we had positioned so that the door faced the gate. Every night, I waited until all the chickens were in the coop before leaving the house to shut the coop door, and every night Rose and sometimes others, would run out to see if I was bringing anything good to eat. I gave Rose a hug, said good night, and put her back in. This year, I hope to sneak up on them because they won’t see me coming.

Terry put in the next boxes, and Hilda got the wood chips spread around. We planned to move the hens Friday night if it wasn’t raining. We would have been glad for the rain, as we need it desperately. We didn’t get any, though, so we proceeded with the chicken move. As you may recall, chickens have poor night vision, which makes darkness the best time to catch them. Terry got out the Gater and loaded the kennel in the back. Hilda and I took the chickens from their perch in Coop 1 and put them in the kennel while Terry opened and closed the kennel door.

Fortunately we remembered that we had to move the waterer before we installed the chickens. It would have been difficult to keep them contained while making space for the waterer and its stand.

Now we needed two people on the doors. Hilda took Coop 2 while Terry manned the kennel. I grabbed the chickens one by one and set them on the perch. To my surprise, they pretty much stayed there. As I was moving the last chickens, there was some tussling and squawking as they vied for position. I should have paid more attention to the roosting order when I was taking them off the perch in Coop 1. Oh well. They got it sorted out.

In the morning, they weren’t shy about charging forth to explore their new home.

What is this place of green grass and wide ope space?

Bella was the only one to take much notice of the feeder that I brought down to install in the coop.

It was a matter of minutes before they began systematically scattering the mulch that Terry has so carefully spread beneath the apple trees. There must be some good things to eat under there! Terry doesn’t mind. In fact, it is his hope that the girls will eat all the apple pests. The video below show Blanche beginning her work.

I brought down the trough waterer to keep outside. We prefer the nipple waterers for in the coop because the girls splash around too much in open waterers. I turned on the hose, and it worked okay for a few seconds. Then the stream reduced to a dribble. I inferred that there was ice in there. I set the nozzle so it would stay on and let it piddle into the waterer, since running water is the fasted way to melt ice. As soon as the trough was full, Juanita, Angelica, and Rosa Dolores had to have a drink. The end of the video shows them drinking and the hose dribbling.

Fresh water is always best

It was a beautiful day yesterday. The weeping willows in the back nursery look bright yellow from a distance. Up close, I could see that they were blooming.