Hanging out at Jamber Urban Farm

I've been parked at my daughter's house for the past couple of weeks now. It has been going well and the weather has warmed up to summer temperatures. I spend a lot of time outside in their back yard, hanging out with the chickens, cats, and dog. There has been a fair bit of yard work to do as the snow only just melted a few weeks ago, leaving behind the sins of fall and winter.  We made a great deal of progress and the ornamental crabapple tree is just about in full bloom - gorgeous and annoying. The blossoms are stunning but the ornamental crabapples are useless and make such a mess and dangerous for chickens. 

I love to check the henhouse for eggs each day. The two hens, Cruella Deviled Egg and Mandarin aka Mandy are regular layers and produce up to a dozen eggs per week between them. So far today - one egg from Mandy. 

For the most part it has been wonderful to chill here however this morning one of the chickens was fussed up about something at 5:30am and because I am directly on the other side of the fence with my big bedroom window open for fresh air, I hear every cluck up. Usually I don't hear much from them other than cooing and minor clucking. Cruella loves to be held and the other day my daughter gave her a bath as she had a bit of a dirty vent (where the eggs and poop both come out. She put up a bit of protest but was easily calmed. 

I feed them very nice salads of spinach, grated carrot and zucchini topped with dried mealworms. Cruella is a ninja with those mealworms and pecks them out immediately, leaving Mandy with just a couple that she snuck out from under Cruella's beak. A few days ago on the weekend, my daughter's partner dug up a nest of beetles and a few worms so we gave them to the hens in some mud - well did they ever like that! They went nuts after all of the goodies, chasing one another back and forth to take what the other chicken had. 

We had a few escapes but nothing we couldn't handle and were able to herd them back into the pen of safety.