Slowly but surely the Winter preps are getting done. Each little change over the Summer has made more work for Winter in adjusting how I have to do things of course and I am filling some holes that caused a few problems last year while I am at it.
This year we added another water tank to the mix in the barn lot. Before we used to let the sheep out in the pasture and leave the gate open but with the new set up we put them in the West pasture and keep em out of the barn lot during the day, unless it's bad weather anyway. That means we need two heated water tanks, one for day and one for night. I also shortened one ram paddock for work on the fence that didn't get done so that tank requires a new setup to run the electric out to it.
My mother is finally feeling well enough to help feed once again so that has freed up a little bit of time for me to catch up as well.
The last little Winter prep project I plan on working on today will be a cross bar outside the barn that will let me drain the water hose after use. I have tried all types of ways to water in Winter but with our ever changing setup I just can't get away from needing a hose for someone all year long so the best way I have come up with it to drain the hoses religiously.
After I get the last water tanks taken care of it will be time to turn my attention back to the bees. This week looks like it is going to be back to warmer with the only day forecast to go below freezing being this morning so I still have a bit of leeway in getting the girls settled in.
I still haven't found a Blue egg since the two I got about a month ago. Either those Easter egg hens are not laying or they are hiding their eggs well or they laid one blue egg each and then switched to brown which most readers here say isn't possible in their experience. I don't know what's up with these hens though but I will admit I have so far not witnessed either of the Easter eggers nor the Hamburg hen sitting so I am leaning towards them having a super secret spot I haven't found yet.
I must admit though that the mystery and trying to figure out where the little tarts are hiding their eggs has proven a pretty entertaining past time so far. Today I had one of the Red hens start fussing at me when she popped her head up from inside one of my swarm trap boxes. Sure enough I went over there and found a little hoard of six eggs. Since the EE's and Hamburg are so small my bet is they found a hidden hole that I can't see into.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!!
Little did you know how entertaining chickens would be. I have put camo on like I was hunting to see where a hen is hiding eggs. Some are pretty smart but on the other hand some never seem to lay eggs so it may be a lost cause.
ReplyDeleteSf - An interesting side note here.Right after making this post today I walked out into the creep feeder stall and found six more eggs in the corner there. One of them was a blue one. So maybe they just went through a molt or something?
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