Talk about Chicken

These speckled hens are the ones I love the most.

Next year I am going to isolate my home grown speckled roosters with these home grown speckled hens and then hatch the eggs. Who knows what we will get but I hope to get more speckled hens.

Boo has come into his own and is being magnificent with the young birds now. I would never have done this earlier in the summer but it seems that he has worked out that the chickens are not for carrying about.

Plus very recently he is beginning to herd in a thoughtful way – Ton I can move on command, and tell to Stay but no cow is afraid of him (Ton is more of a signal dog really, I send him out to Lady and he kind of TELLS her it is milking time  by lying down next to her, but Boo is doing very well with the Go Round, and Get Away commands, moving right around the group of cows and bringing them in. Twice he has cut out the calves (he knows they are sent to the barn by themselves) and brought them quietly to the gate.  So while the weather is good we practice at milking time very slowly walking in our little herd and dividing them up so Lady Astor is in the yards, the calves are into the barn, and the other three are sent back out into the field.

The dogs and I are enjoying this new development.

Peghorn our oldest and most distinguished rooster, having survived many  solid hidings at the claws of the younger set, and has had two long stays in the chickens hospital wing  knocking on deaths door, has developed an ability to become invisible. He hides when the other bigger younger roosters are about and when I open the door to let Amanda’s chicks out he shoots in to have a good munch.  At night he sidles through the barn  door last and sneaks in to sleep with Tima and Tane and their cat LuLu.

I hope you have a good day.

Love celi