We started with 14 chickens and guineas combined.
We’re down to 9.
Thankfully, the ones with names have persevered – but honestly I’m getting nervous.
We lost the first guinea when all three stayed out overnight. We had been attempting to let them roam free range around the farm. They did fine on the first night and figured out how to roost on top of the henhouse. However, on night two – two disappeared.
We recovered one from the wood line days later, but the other was never found.
We quickly returned to putting them back in the henhouse every evening. When things had appeared to have calmed down, we attempted the free range roosting again.
And, again, another guinea was lost.
So we gave up on free range.
Shortly after, we took off for Utah for a week-long vacation. Before leaving, we added a new large feeder to the chicken run and repaired the space where the old feeders left a hole.
Apparently I didn’t do it quite well enough.
While we were out of town, we lost 3 beautiful chickens: a white silkie, a brown silkie and a brown pullet meat bird.
What remains is a flock of stunning birds, but noticeably fewer. The whole thing is made even more sad by the fact that we need to butcher a few of the meat roosters soon. I can’t imagine what this coop will look like with them gone.
Drumstick (our brown frizzle) and Betty White are still hanging around. Sooner than later, we’ll have to ditch the biggest of the crew. Even without a name, he’s become a coop favorite and seeing his beautiful beautiful color go will be heartbreaking.
Thus is the life of chicken farming, I suppose. I don’t remember this part being quite so bleh!