Morning Routine and an Award

My blog friend, Fern, has given me an award that suits me well. It's the "Show Me Some Love" award. What a sweet face to go with such a sweet award. I am certainly happy to accept this award, so thank you Fern!

I know we're supposed to share these with other bloggie friends, but I've tried giving awards before and gotten no response (I think they were a little perturbed), so won't pass it along. But here's mine!!


I wanted to share with everybody what my morning routine is like with the outside critters. I do this twice a day, every day. These days I can take my time b/c I'm not working, but hopefully that will change in the very near future (I hope, I hope, I hope). Ok, here we go....after taking care of the dogs and kitties inside I have to open the barn. First I go through the garage where Snow White sleeps in a dog crate. This came about b/c he and the two other roosters were getting into bloody fights and it was the best way to keep them separated.

Here's Snow White ready to go outside.
He spends his days in a makeshift pen next to the pasture. It isn't large, but there's plenty of room for him to scratch around and knock over his waterer daily (I think it's a game for him).
Of course, Hansel and Gretel (both males) have to immediately give him his morning harassment before going on their way. It is defintely their favorite game. I actually took this picture after all the chickens were out of the barn, so you can see Woodstock in the background.
I give Hansel and Gretel a dish of cracked corn each morning; there isn't a lot of grass for them to eat now even though I sewed some winter rye seed in the fall.

Next task is to open the barn to let the chickens out. They are eagerly waiting for me! I've already opened the solid door, now I need to open the screen door to let them out.
...and here they come. They can't get out of there fast enough to look for bugs! The small guy in the center is my little Woodstock. He is one sweet rooster!
Here are Hansel and Gretel waiting to chase Woodstock, my tiny rooster. Why they target him, I don't know. He broke his leg years ago and is quite gimpy, so I keep the geese away from him till he can put some distance between them. Woodstock isn't in this picture; he's lagging behind letting his girls go first...such a little gentleman!

Back inside the barn, I need to let Big Rooster and Beauty out to their pen. I have too many roosters and can't let them all with the hens for obvious reasons.

Here goes Big Rooster (he's huge) out the little pop door to the pen.
Next is Beauty - he is one mean little guy. The only reason he is still around is because he found his way back home after I took him for a very long walk down the road. It may sound cruel, but I'd rather feed the foxes than people. And trust me, Beauty is a mean little sucker and will stalk you and jump at you with his spurs. Since his "walk" and being gone for four days, he has never attempted to attack me again. But he and Big Rooster certainly get into it occasionally.


Next on the list is to feed the two pharoa qual. The male was given to me b/c he was hurting his roomies. I felt sorry for him living a solitary life so got him a girlfried so I could have some beautiful eggs to decorate with. He's never hurt his little girlfriend. Here is Warble, the male....and here is his friend, who I've never given a name to. This year she is old enough to be laying some pretty speckeled eggs :) I had built them a cute little shelter to sleep in but they wouldn't use it. Now they are quite happy sleeping behind the board that is propped against the back wall of their little pen.

Now that I'm back near the garage, I need to take care of an injured hen. I ran out of places to put her, so she's been staying in my wire garden wagon. She's been on anti-biotics for a couple of weeks to treat a condition called bumblefoot - a type of infection. I'll be letting her back out with all her friends in a few more days.

Well, it is late into the morning and they are all waiting for me. Today the weather will be beautiful so I'll be sanitizing all the pools and waterers and do some general cleaning up after these messy little critters.

Have a great day everybody!

(Edited to note the obvious: All the critters are taken care of in reverse at the end of the day and put in their appropriate sleeping places.)