4 Wheelin' Chick...

I'll bet you didn't know that chicks like to go 4-wheelin'.  I brought a chick inside to cheer Tobers up, who has a fever today.  Whippersnapper set this little cutie chick on their toy 4-wheeler and it promptly fell asleep!  I woke it up when I was taking pictures.

 She is very pretty with her wings feathering out!  She sat there for the longest time.  It was pretty cute, and the boys got a giggle out of it too.:)  

Leave it!

Evan's dog, Dolly, is pretty special to us.  In her training as a puppy we taught her the "leave it" command.  Anything she wanted with high value like a dog treat, lunch meat, toy we'd practice telling her "Leave it." and taught her to leave it along until we gave her a command that it was OK to take it.  This has been incredibly valuable as we go about our daily lives, but never more so than now that we have all these chicks everywhere!  

When we first brought home the chicks in the boxes she was keenly interested and excited about them.  So occasionally we'd tell her to "Leave it" and she'd settle right down, still looking intently but obedient to our command.

I am so impressed that Evan has been consistent with her and that she has taken to the training so well.  She is a smart dog and I am so happy we took the time to teach her some of these basic commands because it is sure making our lives much easier during stressful times like getting 200 chicks settled into their coop.

Dolly loves the chicks and wants to play, but is using restraint and watching intently.

Hopefully she continues to be a good girl around the chickens and uses her instincts for good.

The New Brooder...

We needed a larger brooder set-up in order to house the larger number of chicks we have in each batch this year.  We needed a secure, warm area to get the chicks ready for their movable pens which takes about 3 weeks from time of hatch.  So we built this structure to house the chicks and then we built an inner box with legs that houses a heat lamp to warm the chicks.  We also have a creep feeder built into the wall of the brooder that features a gutter for the feeder trough at the bottom, angled 2x6s, and plywood to keep the feed contained. 

The new brooder is on the left, the older chicken coop (with a fresh coat of paint now) is on the right.

 Inside the hover box, there are 2 heat lamps to keep the chicks warm.  The bulbs can be changed out for less wattage for less heat and the legs can be set on top of blocks to reduce temps as well.  

So far so good with this design and arrangement.:)  Chicks seem happy and warm.

A Couple Odds and Ends...

We planted our seedlings a few weeks ago, and they are coming up nicely so far!

Sunshine got her closet drape all sewn up.  It looks great, and the fabric was really great to work with too.

We are also working on a mural in the boys room that is a simple silhouette hunting scene.  I will have to show pictures when we get it done.

Layer Chicks...

We haven't had layer chicks in a couple year and I forgot how pretty they are!  Although these gals are more beautiful than most we've ever had even as chicks. 

This is an Ameracauna chick, isn't her coloring neat even as a 2 day old chick?  

She looks like she is even wearing eye make-up.

This is a Golden Comet (red sex-link) chick.

The white/light yellow chick in the picture below is a white leghorn.

We can't wait until we start getting those beautiful farm fresh eggs again!

Remodel Recap...

Well, where to start?  We have been BUSY for the past 6 weeks.  Crazy busy!  We were able to remodel the living/dining areas, small area off the kitchen that is our office, the boys' bedroom, most of the bathroom, and Sierra's room all in the last 6 weeks or so!  All rooms got some minor wall arrangements, new tape and texture, paint, flooring, window blinds and organization.  

My favorite improvement was this wall section getting changed up some.

Before there were two partition walls with openings in them (as you can see in the "before" pic).  The walls weren't large enough to be able to set furniture against them and I didn't care for the openings in the walls.  So we decided to take out the wall section right by the front door (behind the step ladder in the before pic above).  Then we decided to extend the wall in the foreground so we could put furniture against the wall and be able to install the wood stove on the other side of the wall in the future.

The next thing I love is the new flooring throught all the remodeled areas!  Oh it is so nice.  What a huge improvement to the look of the house.  You can see in the picture collage below we put a wood look Allure flooring in the living areas and boys' room.  It is called TrafficMaster Allure in Pacific Pine color.  We really like this flooring, it was so easy to install that the kids and I ended up installing a lot of it.  In the bathroom and kitchen we put in a tile pattern of the same type of flooring.  It is called Traffic Master Allure in Cordoba color.

We tried to choose flooring that would hide dirt and dog hair well and we set actual dirt, mud and dog hair on all the samples and these two were the best. 

We have a lot of finishing touches to do, especially trim work, but we are holding off on that stage until we have the shop done enough to be able to finish the woodwork out of the weather.  So for now, it is totally comfortable and we are enjoying the upgrades.