Put them in the chicken sideyard, with a heat lamp, 3 feeders and a large water dispenser. I'm impressed, they are jumping up on the logs, moving around well, but all skeddadle when I enter with more food ! I do the 'chicken call' each time I go in with food, but they don't associate it with food yet. All the other chickens do, and try scoot into the sideyard whenever I open the gate.
I now milk in the morning, after separating the calves from Daisy May and Eleanor over night. I move the 3 calves to the chicken yard, together with Dolly. Then milk in the morning before allowing those greedy little buggers to nurse. As Dolly only has 1 viable teat, I leave Taxes with her as he nurses more often to get his full quota, plus he shares her special feed concoction, and I don't milk her but she's good at watching the calves.
Herbie is struggling to get back into his crazy work schedule hours. It wouldn't be as bad if it was consistent, but Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he starts "late" - 4:30am to make the 8am GM delivery, while Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays he starts at 3am. Except when his dispatcher calls at midnight saying his truck or trailer is not at his depot, then he has to go in even earlier to make the 8am GM delivery time.
Heard coyotes yipping tonight, so shut Maddie in the garage where she'd be safe. Something has been trying to kill her recently - she had bite marks on her face :( and she wants to spend more time with me. She can open the back door, so I have to lock it to keep her out the house. She made 4 lots of runny poop in the house 2 days ago while I was down in the basement doing laundry, so, if I'm busy, I'd rather she'd not be inside, as 2 of them were upstairs in our bedroom where she'd looked for me !!! I've taught her to eat grapes, and cherries, which she loves. So cool how she spits each cherry pit out before gobbling the next one and I can't feed her the grapes fast enough :). But once she's had enough, she stops eating them. Had Lisa steal a grape I dropped tonight. Think dogs aren't supposed to eat grapes. Will have to look that up again.
Egg laying is way down. Think the girls are hiding eggs from me again. Found the nest of guinea eggs, and took the 4 freshest ones and put them in the rafters of the chicken house for the Banty. She hatched 3 last year, but unfortunately, none made it longer than a week or so. Maybe she'll have better luck this time.
Went and picked apples at a friend of Jackies this week. Hope to press them into cider on Sunday. Maddie was a hoot, biting into the apples in the bucket. I had to cover them, otherwise many apples would have had teeth marks in them :).
Made a batch of feta cheese that turned out well, and just realised I didn't hang the yoghurt to drain tonight. Tomorrow, as I'm in bed already.
Good night :) or rather, good morning.