A Boy & a Hen... Friends

This boy has been feeding chickens from that step since before he could walk.

My heart...

The chickens know he's the one who's very generous with treats!

"Friendship" was the topic for my weekly-ish art challenge. They're good friends, this boy and these chicks.

Original Oil Painting on 12"x 12" Wrapped Canvas

[NFS]

Who moved into the new coop? Who laid the first egg?

So... How did the game of "Who will take make the new coop their home" turn out?

Click HERE if you need a reminder.

Here's how it worked out...

• 1st Night - 
• Nobody would go into the new coop, the Aunt House.
• Dominique and the babies stayed in the big Sister House.
• The other 7 huddled in the little Cousin House.
• 2nd Night 
• Eleanor went into the Aunt House happily.  No one else would go near it.
• I caught Twinkle and Pauline and put them in there too.  
• They were not happy about it.
• Dominique and the babies stayed in the big Sister House.
• Everybody else stayed in the little Cousin House.
• 3rd Night 
• Eleanor went in the Aunt House happily.  No one joined her.  She was glad.
• Dommi and the babies stayed in the big Sister House.
• The other 6  huddled in the little Cousin House glaring at me as if I was Voldemort. 
• 4th Night 
• Eleanor had the new Aunt House to herself again.
• Everyone else stayed in the same places as before.
• 5th Night 
• Dominique decided that she and her babies would take over the new Aunt House.
• The 4 big hens took the big Sister House (Eleanor, Pip, Pauline, Twinkle)
• The 3 young ones stayed in the little Cousin House (Peanut, Fancy-like, Foxy)
• 6th Night
•  Dommi and the babies went back into the new coop as if it was, of course, built for them.
• The 4 big hens went right back too the Sister House as if it was, of course, their choice all along.
• The 3 young hens ran around nervous as to why no one wanted to stay with them in the little Cousin House any more, but they eventually went in where it had always been their home.

I think that's probably how it's going to stay.

It's not what I expected, but it's a good arrangement.

There's only been one egg laid in the new coop.  And it was.... Blue/Green!

Twinkle... Sweet little thing... She was not happy about the one night I made her go in the new coop, but she laid her pretty little blue-green egg anyway.

Since Dominique has taken over, I doubt another egg will get laid in there until the babies are bigger and she starts laying again.

Now...

It's quite obvious that I do not know how to run a blog guess-for-a-prize game since there's not clear way to declare a winner... Clearly I did not think this through... Oh, well, if you guessed at least something right😁, you're a winner!  I'll contact you about which little painting I can send  you. 

• Tina
• Dominique😁 Eleanor😁thenX TwinkleX 
• light brownX green😁
• Wendy
• PaulaX  PipX  Peanut
• blue😁  light brownX  green😁
• Linda
• FoxyX Fancy-likeX PeanutX
• No eggsX
• Nelvia
• Dominique😁
• light brownX
• Julie
• FoxyX FancyX PeanutX 

Tina, Wendy, & Nelvia,

I'll be contacting you about which little mini painting you'd like.

New Coop - and a Chance to Win a Prize!

It's been a while since I've written a chicken post! 

This is a fun one with a chance to win a prize at the end!!!!

What better way to celebrate turning 60 (him, not me) and enjoy a Thanksgiving weekend than building a new hen coop!

Look inside. See the who just can't wait until the roof is on before having a look around. 
He had lots of little interested feathered helpers during the whole process.

A few shakes of the treat container and they all came running for a closer look.

Now, how about a little fun!!!

❓Who do you think will decide to make the brand new coop their home?

         (I like to have 3-5 in each house.)

❓What color will the egg be? 

         (Green? Light tan? Light brown? Speckled?) 

You make the call! 

Put your guesses in the comments below.  

We'll see what happens!  

😉😀😄I'll send a little 5"x7" painting to winners! 😉😀😄

Here are a few chicken stats to help you with your decision

 Dominique & her 4 babies
She totally "rules the roost." Nearly all of the hens below are her daughters.
She protects her babies and makes sure the others know she's boss.

Eleanore (from Dominique's first brood)
She's kind of aloof.  She lays lovely light tan eggs, but honestly,
she's been kind of a freeloader lately.  She took the summer off from laying. 
Her excuse was molting, but her feathers have been back for weeks,
she just recently started "working" again.

Twinkle (can't remember if she was one of Dominique's or Dolly's)

Sweet little Twinkle is easy and friendly and is a faithful layer of 

beautiful little green eggs..

Paula and Pip (Dominique's daughters from her spring brood)
They hang together most of the time.
Paula just started laying recently.  Her eggs are a beautiful shiny light green.
She's a flighty one.
Pip is stately.  She also started laying pretty light brown eggs  last week.

Foxy, Fancy-like, & Peanut (Dominique's daughters from her summer brood)
They hang together all the time.They aren't quite old enough to lay yet, but soon maybe.
Foxy is a mess.  She likes to run around the house when it's bedtime and make me chase her.
Fancy-like is so sweet.  She's a Bantam, so she'll always be small and lay small eggs.  Her feet are yellow, so I expect her eggs to be white, tan, or brown. 
Peanut is hilarious. She's a tiny Bantam who isn't afraid to jump right up onto the arm of my chair for a treat.  Her legs are gray, so I hope to see some tiny blue or green eggs from her soon.

So, what do you think?

We're going to let the hens decide.

Leave your predictions in the comments!

I'll let you know what happens next week!

FYI: It started raining, so they all put themselves to bed in their normal houses before we got out there. 

Dominique and the babies in the Sister House. 

All the other 7 crowded into the Cousin House (since Dominique kicked them all out once she had new babies.)

So, nobody went into the brand new shiny Aunt House tonight.

Linda's Farmyard Memories

I want to be in this scene.

It's easy for me to imagine sitting on the back porch swing... watching the chickens peck around... feeling the breeze,.. noticing the windmill turning faster... wondering whether that thunderhead will bring rain or just move along.

It feels like a back-home memory ought to feel.

What a pleasure it was to get to paint this one.

My blog friend Wendy of  Pieceful Thoughts posted a photo of one of my paintings alongside one of her beautiful quilts.  From that, her blog friend (and my new blog friend) Linda of Texas Quilt Gal contacted me about doing a painting for her.

It took me about zero seconds to fall in love with the story her image was telling me.

Before beginning, I asked Linda many questions. Her answers would give me a feel for what was important in this photo and what would be important for her to see in the painting.

Here are a few snips of some of her answers:

... photo taken in the late 1950s, showing the view the windmill..., the chicken house (there are chickens at the bottom of the photo), and the old barn... taken from the back of the house...

... thunderheads were my favorite subject with my Brownie camera... still one of my favorite subjects...

... the coop, the chickens, the tree, the clothes line, the windmill, and yes, the thunderheads - all...  meaningful and part of the picture in my head. 

The chickens were dear to me but they weren’t very smart, and Mom and I almost always had to shoo them into shelter before a storm or they’d just get soaked.

Yes to the blue sky AND the billowing storm clouds, if possible....  white billowing clouds but darker underneath, the thunderheads that develop quickly in Oklahoma...

Haha on the chickens - yes most were white, but my big Plymouth Rock rooster (Rooney) was my pet who actually followed me around. We had a couple of Rhode Island Reds and what Mom and Granny called a "black banty hen"...

I hope I captured most of the important parts of the scene.  If you look closely even Rooney the Plymouth Rock rooster, a Rhode Island Red chicken, a little black Bantam hen, and a few white chickens made it onto the canvas! (Linda's not the only one who has an infatuation with chickens! 😉)

Enjoy a little 40 second video of the process. (And, yes. I did totally screw up the tree and have to wipe it out and try again.)

Thanks to Linda for trusting me to put her memories on canvas.

Thanks to this 40 year old book with a pretty great cloud painting lesson.

Original Oil Painting on 12"x 16" Wrapped Canvas
[SOLD]

Chickies!

 

Five new tiny little members of the family here at Serendipity.

Imagine a big cotton ball... That's about the size and weight of these little chicks. But, you'll also need to imagine that cotton ball peep peep peeping and skittering around after mama.

Three days ago I brought these babies home from the farm supply store.  That night after dark, I carried them out to the coop where Dolly was broody and patiently sitting on the fake eggs.  One at a time, I slipped each baby under her.  She'd look... give it a peck... scoot it under her... wiggle her feathers in contentment.  The next morning she was proud to show off her new family.  They spent a day or so in the nesting box. Then she brought them down to the ground in the coop and started teaching them. After a day of that, she brought them outside the doors of the coop to explore a little further.

They never stop peeping.  She never stops clucking.  I guess that's how they converse. 

Cute.

Spring Chicks

 

These are the first two chicks that were hatched here on our little farm that we like to Serendipity.   It's pretty amazing to hear the peeps while the eggs are still whole, to watch the cracks appear, then to see a wet little scrap of chick eventually pop out.

There's no telling how much time I've spent just watching them with their mamas. Mama hens know exactly what to do to teach those babies everything they need to know. 

 

I try to leave them alone, but oh, my goodness!!! How can I not hold them just a little bit!!

 

We've gotten fertilized eggs a few times so a broody hen could have some babies, but we do it differently now.  When a hen gets broody, I go to the store and buy some chicks that are just a couple of days old.  Once it's dark outside, we go out with the babies and slip them one by one under the hen sitting in the nesting box.  The next morning she wakes up proud of her new family.  We've done it this way several times, and it's been successful.

Why?

• We can get pullets (baby hens) instead of the 50/50 gamble of eggs being hens/roosters.
• We can get the breed we want. (I like variety in my hens' feather color and in my egg colors.)
• The hen doesn't have to sit weeks and weeks in the hot nesting box waiting for the unfertilized eggs, fake eggs, and golf balls that she's sitting on.
• We have never wanted the trouble of having a rooster. (Although, we seem to have one now...) 

What have we learned?

• Take the eggs, fake eggs, and golf balls out as you put the babies under.  The chicks are still so tiny and fragile. The mama has gone to sleep not realizing that she'll wake up sitting on babies.  The extra eggs can cause a baby to get smashed between them. Sometimes it happens anyway.
• Arkansas law doesn't allow farm supply stores to sell less than 6 chicks.  We try to wait until a couple of hens are broody so we can give them each 3.  
• Lots of things can keep a chick from reaching a year old. (Getting crushed, just not thriving, hawks...) We've found that about 1 in 3 makes it to lay her first egg.

We got our first 3 chickens 4 years ago and enjoy them so much.

My weekly art challenge theme was "Easter."  So many symbols of Easter... A cross, an empty tomb... white lilies, tulips... bonnets, baskets, bunnies... colored eggs... Eggs? Chicks!  I remembered the photos I'd taken of these babies thinking that one day I'd paint them.  I guess this was the day!

Original Oil Painting on 6"x 6" Wrapped Canvas

[SOLD]

Chickens in Winter

It's hard being a chicken farmer in the winter.
I better not complain.

It's harder being a chicken in the winter.

Ha... I guess I'm not much of a farmer
with my rainboots and pajama pants.

Before the snow began, they
congregated around the back door
watching me in the kitchen.

Brrrrr... It's been some kind of cold cold here.

Evening Walks

Autumn evenings are fine for walking the dog and enjoying the neighborhood. 

Some neighbors line up to say hello.

Others just go on about their business.

They might even offer a chair and ask you to stay a while.

Or they might show up back at your own house.

Fall Chicks

Just a few chick-pics to make you smile.

I had a couple of broody hens that just would not give up.  In the end, I gave in to them and got them some babies. (Or, maybe I should say that Ron gave in to me... and let me get them some babies.)

From two different farmers, we got some day-old chicks, waited until after dark, then slipped them under their new mamas. We had happy chick families the next morning!

These two are Ameraucanas,
so I'm hoping for blue eggs one day!  

(Look closely, you'll see them.)
The other farmer said these three were a day old,
Hmph... They got fluffy pretty quickly.

That farmer also said these were Easter Eggers,
but I'm not completely convinced.  We'll see.

Dolly's such a good mama hen.
These tiny littles blend in with the ground.  I have to be careful!

I just love seeing a yard full of colorful chickens.

How Many Chickens in my Backyard?

He says they're my chickens... but... 

We got 3 chickens which was just the right amount.. 

... until we had 5 chickens which was just the right amount... 

... until we had 8 chickens which was just the right amount...

... until we had 11 chickens which was just the right amount...

... until we had 13 chickens which is absolutely the right amount!

They work hard in the woods every morning. 

They always hang out with each other, but it's rare that I can get a photo with all 13 in it.  One will be sitting on the nest or two will be under the deck or some will be behind a trees.  They simply will not line up and smile for the camera!

All 13 in one photo!

Every afternoon my little flock moves to the side yard.  Here they can keep an eye on their coops  and the back door.  If I come out shaking their canister of treats, they come running (except for Fancy who only walks) to greet me then run to their coops... where they may (or may not... sometimes one or two will decide to play ring-around-the-rosy first.) go straight to bed for the night. 

The three coops:
The Sister House, The Cousin House, The Friends House

We had one pretty little coop... until we had two... until we had three which is the just right amount!  They're happy being one big group all day, but they know which coop they belong to... (except for Fancy who sometimes chooses to sleep over with the Sisters or the Friends).

The Sister House:
          Dolly, Torchie, Dot, Sprinkles, Thumbelina
The Cousin House
          Sylvia, Fancy, Red Red, Other Red
The Friends House
          Dominique, Danielle, Eleanor, Marigold

The babies... We grabbed these out of the bin at the farm store
when they were all one day old in August and slipped them
under Dolly that night. The next morning they were a family. 
This is how they look now!
I LOVE how different these sisters are!

Pretty!