My latest obsession - spawned by an ad on CL that didn’t even pan out - is raising some hens in my backyard as egg-layers. Where did that come from!?
So I did a lot of reading into coops, and nest boxes, and tractors (not the tractory kind, the mobile chicken box kind) and breeds and all that jazz. I suppose I should look into zoning laws, but I have to be honest I’m just assuming that I live in new mexico so there should be no problem.
So far Back Yard Chickens looks like the best community to get advise and protips, and this site has lots of good links to branch out from. To get some good ideas of how to build nesting boxes.
So, last Sunday I responded to a post, someone had too many pullets so I went to buy 3.
From left to right, Darlene a Cuckoo Maran, Peggy Sue an Americauna, and Abigail a Delaware. So far, Abi is definitely the boss hen, and the boldest and most inquisitive. I’ve got them in a penned in grassy area, with a totally ramshackle coop that I built from scraps, so they just put themselves to bed at night in there. They’re very chatty and mostly stick together doing chickeny .. things. Aspen thinks it’s all very curious and wants very much to be allowed to check them out up close, but the one time I let her in she gave Peggy a heart attack chasing her, so .. seperate for now. I was going to give them the run of the yard but they don’t seem to care all that much. They’re about 11 weeks old, and won’t start laying till august probably. May also pick up a Rhode Island Red a little later. They should lay a nice assortment of eggs ranging from blueish-green to tan to dark brown. Which reminds me, a compilation of some egg recipes which I may need to keep in mind later!
Speaking of eggs, while I was building the coop from scraps that are piled up in the shed and lean-to area, a Robin was totally zooming around angrily. I realized she had a nest on top of some racked 1×2s I wanted to use so I sort of patted around the next and realized it had eggs in it. So, I left that wood be, and a few days later baby robins appeared! I may try and get a shot of the gaping mouths its pretty cute, but tucked up under a rafter, so we’ll see.
Had a nice visit in Cincinnati last weekend, we went and shot some CRG rollergirls who were skating against Madison WI. And did some exploring, oh and saw Star Trek in IMAX (Awesome (I heart Zachary Quinto)). Oh and I finally tried some Skyline Cincinnati Chili. Which is served to you on top of spaghetti (?) with lots of shredded cheese. It tasted of garam masala, the greek spice I use when I’m making moussaka or w/e and indeed the founder was greek. It’s an odd combo. On the one hand it’s tasty, but at the same time there’s just something not quite right about it.
Also got some nice things in the mail! Jase sent me Florida grapefruits from when he was in sarasota, so those have been delicious and wonderful! And lisa sent me some beautiful little japanese style bowls since aspen broke all mine 
And Andrew sent me an Easter Pez! It’s hello kitty, and sitting on my desk at work dispensing lemon pez to all who want. Don’t know what I did to deserve all that, but, awesome! Oh and Jase is sending me some audiobooks on CD becaues I’ll be driving like 500-600 miles this weekend to and from various events, and then on Thursday I’m driving up to denver to meet him there! So we can explore the Rocky Mountain National Park. Super excited for that 
And that photo was one from the CRG derby. I’m not 100% sure on the crop, I may go back and re-do that.
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