The Faeries of the Garden

We recently did a little experiment for Halloween. And, as you might guess, we dressed up the chickens. We made little tutus out of fabric and everyone got one. Our "Faeries of the Garden". I apologize for most the pictures, they were very dark.

So we dressed up everybody and brought them out front, however no one was a fan. At first we though Penny liked them because she just sat there, but once she moved and realized it followed her, she had a mini freak out. Nothing like Betty's though. Betty, an 8 pound chicken, the fattest of our flock, nearly had a heart attack. The Pink and Blue monster chased her and she was a blur running by.  She ran all around the house before we could get her outside. When we caught her and took the tutu off she was wheezing, old girl wasn't used to that much running. But we had to put it back on for the photo shoot. She ran around outside, calmed down for a bit, but then freaked out again and dove head-first into a fern bush. She stayed there for thirty minutes or so and we'd take her out but she'd go straight back and you could hear her talking. "Is it gone?". When we did take it off she went deep into the garden anyways and sat down, she'd had a stressful day.

Opal doesn't mind it.

Mari nearly got her's off.

And she is free!

Poor Betty tormented by this monster.

Penny shines in the sun.

Marigold wondering how to escape again after we put it back.

Betty calmed a little.

Mari and Betty try and escape.

Everyone kept taking breaks to try and pull theirs off, they weren't amused.

I thought she looked best but she didn't agree.

BB was fine with it.

Opal making a break for the neighbor's yard, away from these tutu-making loonies.

Opal never bothered her's but it fell off anyways.

That school yard bully Mari approaches Opal.

Everyone but Penny.

Is the monster still there?

Penny got tired of it after awhile.

Beatrice didn't.

The only two who were okay with it.

Our poor Betty was so embarrassed, she head-dived into the fern bush and didn't leave for thirty minutes, we had to pull her out and then she went deep into the garden and sat down.

I was wrong, Opal got annoyed too. The tutu was too big for Opal and it kept sliding down and tripping her. 

Faeries of the Garden. 

Fabulous Penny in a photo shoot.

Penn was the only one who left it on until the end so we used her for a photo shoot. If she wasn't so fat and out of breath all the time it would have been lovely.

The Queen's Bath

This past Sunday (the 12th), we had to give our tom boy a bath. She is very high maintenance and be a bother. Her chest gets matted and mussed up from food drying on it and her nose is always clogged with dirt. Prior to the wash her comb and wattles were brown and above her eyes was covered in dirt. Her nails were caked with mud and her beak was brown with dirt, too.

Penny before her bath.

She is the only chicken who enjoys foot-soakings or bubble baths, she has a great appreciation for the finer things in life.

"Move it slave, draw me a bath!"

"What the deuce are you looking at?"

"Haha very funny. Who made me a hat?"

"Am I pretty?"

"Yes I am."

"I am very pretty."

Here is our Penny, nice and pretty. She stayed this way until morning when she got out of the coop and into the run. Once I got home I found her chest matted and sticky again and felt disappointed, but she was very pretty while it lasted, not a mark on her. We blowed dried her until she was fluffy. She has the fluffiest butt out of all our chickens and it usually requires weekly baths when the poo dries against her skin and irritates it yet we cut some of those feathers off and it was a little better. 

We bathed her in a big box full of warm water and soap that didn't wear off too much of the oil on her feathers. The water was black after she was done with it.

Sun Bathing and Dust Bathing

It really isn't bathing, is it? 

Dust bathing smothers mites and annoying critters outside the body. Sun bathing just feels good. My family says they have batteries they need to refill once in awhile because they will randomly drop on their side to sun bathe. We have a ring of concrete around the pool and they usually sun bathe on this. We have three dusty spots for the dust baths within the yard including the sandy run. They also appear to love sun bathing on the outdoor couch, don't they?

Silly Opal on Mommy's legs.

Chicken batteries don't last very long.

They fall on their side with their wing and leg out and new chicken owners may mistake them as being dead. Dust bathing and sun bathing are common scares that come to new owners because they don't know what is happening.

Little Millie loves the sun.

They usually dust bathe back to back with their friends-Mari and Millie, Penny and Betty, Beatrice and Pearl(RIP). They also used to love dust bathing in the vegetable beds but they were ruining them so we kicked them out. Penny and Mari are the only ones who don't sun bathe. Penny is too big to go down like that and Mari is from Sweden so she doesn't need help to stay warm. It is hard to even jump up half a foot or sit down on the couch for Penny. Betty sun bathes but rarely. 

Things to Eat

During the summer we get hundreds of peaches from our two trees. The chickens love these, however they get very dirty. They get their faces all sticky and immediately return to the garden. I had to use a wet rag to clean Beactrice's face every day and she would just get dirty again. No one was as bad as her, though. We cut up the peaches and skin them and freeze them for later, we get many big zip lock bags full and never use all of them throughout the year. We have peach cobbler and peach pie and peach cookies even and we always have some left over.

Beatrice really enjoyed peach season and we must have processed one hundred peaches and thrown away triple that because we aren't home for huge chunks of the day and they fall by the minute.

They also enjoy eating maggots. We have two big garbage bin composters that soldier flies lay their eggs in. We don't give them whole dishes of them because rotten forage isn't very healthy for them. We wait for the. Maggots to fall out of the bins and they eat them then. Penny will come running if you open or move the composters. She will only run for food. If she thinks she did not get her fair share she will cry so loud I think our neighbors will call animal control or something.