I am way behind with blogging, so I'll try to get caught up (soon). First part of October it was time to say goodbye to our beloved roosters Elsa and Anna. Out of the seven eggs we hatched FOUR of them ended up being males. We had previously found a new home for Bob first, then Olaf. Next up was these two. A guy that lived outside of Wichita in Andover stopped by to get them on a Monday evening.
The Sunday before they left (October 4th) we purchased two new hens to keep our total chicken count at five. We found a lady down sizing her flock about 45 minutes outside of town. We had planed to go get them in the afternoon but they were pretty stressed out from the early pickup where they had to wrangle the chickens for another guy who picked up about 20. The hens she was giving us were born the week before ours. I was wanting some close in age and this worked out perfectly. The girls wanted to buy them so they each got $5 out of their piggy banks. We made the drive just before evening so the chickens would be easier to catch when they went back into their coop for bedtime.
We had to wait around for a bit for them to slowly make their way into the house. We got to watch a beautiful sunset.
We finally captured the new girls and loaded them up in the van. They spend the next couple of nights in the big bin in the house to keep them safe at night. They were pretty freaked out from the move. We decided their names would be Cinnamon (Emma's) and Sunset (Mary's). In these photos Sunset is on the left.
We noticed Sunset's beak was a little banged up, but it's fully healed now (as I write this two months later)
The next morning it was time to introduce the new girls to the flock. Remember we still had Anna and Elsa as they were getting picked up later that day. It was pretty stressful as their natural reaction is to fight and establish a pecking order. We introduced them in a control manner to minimize pain and injury.
Lots of pecking through the fence. I put the new girls IN the coop and the others outside since I knew how they could handle the open yard and I didn't want to have to try to capture the new girls. They are still nearly impossible to catch while our original three will just stop and let us pick them up. You can see Cinnamon's nose here got bloody from pecking through the fence.
The roosters got picked up and things were all out of wack since the 3 original girls had lost their men. Which ended up being a great time to introduce the new one because a whole new pecking order needed to be established with the males gone. We kept the new girls in the bin another night. The next day I fenced off half the yard to let them all roam together, trying to keep the new girls contained a bit to make it easier to catch. They had no interest in eating out of my hand like the other but I'm happy to report a few weeks later they finally ate out of my hand. They are still a little skittish and very difficult to catch unless pinned in a corner while in the coop. But they have integrated nicely just took a week or so to be accepted.
The first night they slept like this, lol. Both butts handing half out the coop.
Here are all five later that week, practicing social distancing, lol.
Meanwhile our other household pet is aging and in need of diapers. We've kept a diaper on him daily inside to help with any dribbles from his incontinence. He is on meds that are helping and doesn't leak too much but we're not so sure if when leaks happen so the diaper is there as protection.
Grandma Judy came to visit October 8th through the 12th. Crafts with the girls, out to eat for pie,
and a trip to the botanica.
I taught a Holy Yoga class on Saturday mornings early, through the month of October.
Came home one day from dropping the kids off at school to this beautiful praying mantis.
Kyle and I were doing a running program for our home workout. A lot of the runs happened in the afternoon pushing Thomas in the stroller.
Trees were FINALLY starting to change the beginning of October. This was as I was leaving Thomas's preschool drop off.
Preparing for Halloween, Thomas's costume arrived. Baby Shark!
And the girls had their annual check up (six months late - Monday October 12th) mainly because I wanted to get Mary's eyes checked. They checked out okay! And they got their flu shot.
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