New Chickens

The weather here has been extremely dry and hotter than usual which makes for very dry soil.
The fronts come  through but seem to split over our area and go north and south and leaves us with a few drops.

I have been watering the new hostas and also the  three new shrubs I finally picked for the front foundation berm.  I saw these at the oral surgeons' offices and did a little detective work.  I took pictures on the phone and sent them to the greenhouse that did the landscaping.  They were immediately recognized as Canyon Creek Abelia.  I had an abelia so I was sure it was a variety.  This one is much prettier than mine and a better fit for the location.  I haven't mulched them yet but will soon.

Max is doing well.  Finally catching up (a long way to go) on clipping pastures.  Our only dependable worker (former neighbor) is helping a couple of times a week.

I decided I needed chickens.  My girls, Domineckers, will be three  next spring.  They are in their first molt and are not laying well.  We get 1 to 2 eggs daily and that is not enough.  I found a couple of small flocks through Craig's list.  One was at Bolivar, Mo.  Funny thing is the closer we got to their place, I began recognizing  it as where we bought chickens a few years ago.  She had
two laying girls and one of them had a 3-month old pullet baby. She said they were Wyandottes (can't remember what variety she said they were) and one was a Splash Wyandotte (forget the color).  We bought them and I have been trying to identify the coloration.

Then a lady at Strafford, Mo., had 5 young laying hens.  She needed the pen space for her huge flock of guineas.  She called the white ones Light Brahmas, I think the speckled ones are Silver Laced Wyandottes.  I will post better pictures of them later.  This one is blurry. 

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Wyandottes and Black Sex Links

We finally found some young pullets and just-starting-to-lay pullets fairly near.  We drove up around the Stockton Lake area to get them Sunday.  He was a poultry jackpot!  He had banties, several kinds of young chickens and I saw a pen with ducks.  Of course, I wanted one of each.....but settled on  6 Black  Sex Links and 4 Golden Laced Wyandottes.  The Blacks are already laying.

They are the singingest chickens we have ever had.  We both just stood around them listening yesterday.

The blacks are more gentle than the Wyandottes and both are more so than the
Americaunas.

I discovered it is two Buff Orpingtons that are still laying.

I spent about an hour getting the pens fitted out and cleaning up for winter.  We are keeping them separated for a while before tossing them all in together.

I found ut from the poultry man that probably the reason my setting hens didn't work was for the eggs to be fertile, you should have one rooster for every 5 or so birds.....I am at 1 to 15 birds.  He also said I should get rid of my rooster first because the new rooster would fight to the death with him.  He is such a nice bird, DH is very attached to him so we will just continue to buy birds every couple of years or until he ends his days
with us naturally.  Not very practical, I know.

I hope you can hear them on the video (Nell made me do it!). After enjoying her butterfly videos,   I had to try one.  I may have made it too long; it took forever to embed.  I made one calling the chickens....after listening, I decided to do a new one!  I need Nell's lovely southern voice to do voice overs. I sounded like a mule driver!