Wild Hope Homestead

Frodo has been faithfully sitting on her nest of eggs for 14 days. She is doing very well. One morning I didn’t get to push Frodo off the nest at the usual time for her personal time (eating and so forth) as The Little Fulla only slept for 45 minutes. He had pooped. And had the hiccups. Nevertheless, when I went out early afternoon there was a big scratched up area by the feeders and some giant smelly poop. Aha! Frodo had gotten of the nest herself! Since then she has been getting herself up at some point during the day, which is great news for me.

I have been enjoying watching broody, nesting Frodo. When she comes off the nest she is a loud flurry of blue feathers. After letting the whole world know she is out and about she starts to scratch around furiously in the dirt. By this time, the other feather children have arrived to see what the commotion is about and look at Frodo cautiously as she flails around and fluffs her feathers out. Lonely-in-love Elrond usually makes a pass at her, to which he is noisily denied. Frodo will venture out behind the garage now, or even into the orchard a little bit, but not for long. She eats some pellets, drinks some water, does her giant poop and returns back to her nest.

Sam misses Frodo. They are great buddies. I often find her standing in the coop next to Frodo. Since the weather has been very wet lately (finally), Sam and Legolas have been spending a lot of time chilling out in the coop with Frodo. They are also hiding from Elrond. He has been chasing them both. Poor dude. While the ladies are hanging out in the coop he will lollop around the orchard by himself, no doubt mourning his ‘lost’ love, Frodo. It is nice that the hens are keeping each other company, but this means more poop. And more poop in the coop means more scoopy scoop. Sorry. Observation shows that the presence of even one small child increases the incidence of silly rhymes and songs.

Sam is starting to look better as her new feathers grow.

Legolas has grown so much!

The latest development is that Elrond has decided that he’s had enough of being stuck in the orchard on his lonesome and has been escaping. Only into our yard thank goodness, as far as I’m aware, but he could go anywhere really as his attachment to the pen wanes with the absence of Frodo. Chasing the rooster back into the pen is no fun. I put up somewhat of a barricade to stop him jumping over the pallet that he’s been using as an exit point, but clipping his wings has just shot right up my priority list. We need to catch him this weekend. Oh goody.

Preparations are underway for the arrival of the babies but there is still a lot to do. I have been setting up a new pen for all the feather children to move to; nice fresh ground for them and a break for the orchard pen. I have swept the concrete pad in front of the woodshed, blocked any holes I could find around the run where the coop is, bought some hay to lay in the run as a mulch layer and bought a rat bait station, which seems to be working well, keeping the rats and mice away from the chickens and their food in the garage. This weekend we have to pick up the hay and I need The Husband to help me do some chicken wiring around the pen, remove the piles of branches in there and cut up a piece of wood to attach to the coop ramp to make it wider. I also need to get chick starter food (I was waiting for stock to come in but will get it somewhere else), jig up a food and water station in one or two of the nesting boxes and probably other things that I haven’t written down yet. I have the mind of a goldfish right now. I must write things down.

And so here we are, one week to go before Frodo hopefully brings some babies into the world. It is exciting and scary! It is going to be an interesting week…