Ruling the Roost

I now understand the expession "Ruling the roost". A friend of a neighbor of a friend was raising these chickens for someone else and they decided they didn't want them. They were getting to big to keep crammed in his little coop so he was going to set them free in the woods (meaning it would be a miracle if they survived the night). We figured they would do alright mixed in with our own laying birds. Generally its not good to introduce new birds to an established group. But when the ratios are better, as in its not 20 birds picking on one new comer, they stand a better chance of sliding right into the bottom of the pecking order. So with our 5 rhode island whites, we have 1 barred plymyth rock and 5 buff plymoth rocks (we think). I kept them in a pen right beside the rhode islands' for 2 days. Then yesterday I put them in together since I would be home all day and could watch for fowl play. The old birds definitely played the bully. I had to put a second feeder in so the new ones could eat as the old birds guarded their feeder. It was a noisy day, but I think they're starting to work out their pecking order and becoming at peace with each other. Here they are huddled together at one end of the pen.



In other news, we're starting our fall garden. I planted some seeds a few weeks ago and the beans were already too big for the seed cups. Those are now in the ground. We have some tomato plants, another variety of bean, and some herbs that will be ready to go into the ground this weekend. We'll also be growing lettuce, carrots, brocolli, onions, garlic, peas, potatoes, sunflowers, cucumbers, amaranth, beets and spinach. We got a tip on using black plastic as a weed barrier instead of newspaper... so far so good. I've had a few blades of grass poke through the plastic and mulch, but its at small rips in the plastic. So the question is, is the grass ripping the plastic or is the rip allowing the grass to grow through??? We shall see. I'm also wondering how to manage the things like lettuce and carrots that need to be direct seeded, but I have a few more weeks to figure that out. We've gotten all our seeds from Baker Creek except for the garlic... we still don't have that. Seems everyone is sold out. Lesson learned... get garlic in the spring and hold it.

And finally, Fay. She's gone. Off to some other place, hopefully Atlanta, to drop some rain. All in all, I think we got about 15" of rain. It was a lot, and we still have some wet spots, but it never reached anything to do damage. We were lucky. People in Sanford have 5' of water in their homes and alligators and snakes swimming in the streets. All our animals faired well. The goats were loose for about 2 days as winds were shifting. They stayed on our property and only nibbled on some pineapple plants. I finally got everything back to normal yesterday. On Tuesday, Fudge had gotten so badly tangled in the fencing (because I still had not hooked the charger back up) that I thought we would lose her. When I found her, she had rolled several times which further tightened the wires around her neck and had a foot badly tangled as well. She was dehydrated, panting and her eyes were bugging out. But after more than a half hour of work, she was free and walking normally. So the fence is now electrified again, the bike is back in action, as are the turkeys, and normal life feels nice.