Out Around the Barn

Kennedy with Mr. Purdy                               

Kennedy is getting acquainted with one of the new kittens born this past fall.  The mother being a long-haired calico and his siblings being both white short-hairs, Mr. Purdy is a dark calico long-hair kitten.  From the first day we found him, he has had such a wonderful personality that has made it easy for Kennedy to be able to get

close.  She falls in love with every animal on the farm, especially the newborns.  She is quite the little farmer and with every visit, must go to the barn.  Her favorite chore is feeding the chickens and she does it well.  I give her a bucket of feed, Pen Pals Egg Maker Complete, and she will throw little handfuls on the coup ground and then fill the feeders.  With the kittens she does three scoops of feed, 1 per bowl for all 18 on the farm.  They get their fav cat food as well, Proud Paws Cat Food.

I have been raising chickens now for about three years now and I still learn something new everyday.  I have Bantys, Leghorns and Buff Orringtons and they are all now grown.  I have started allowing them to roam the farm and have to alternate letting them out of their coup in the daytime and the dogs out of their pens at night.  I have found that to let them all out at once is unhealthy for the chickens especially.

I have 4 roosters and 43 hens.  They are now laying over 2 dozen eggs a day and I sell them for a buck a dozen otherwise I have them running out of my fridge, literally.  They are a sight to watch as they peck and roam around scrounging for worms and bugs and can make a mound out of nothing pretty fast.  I was surprised to go out to the barn to feed and found my storage room where I put straw and hay for my goats all in mounds and hills.  They work fast.

The other thing I am trying to learn is how to get them back in the coup when I need them there.  If I wait until 8 pm  they might go in pretty easy because it is getting dark but, there are days when I need them to go in earlier if I need to be gone or I know I won’t be able to be out at the barn at the time when they need to go in.  Right now I am chasing chickens everyday to get them in.  I seem to always have a couple stray away from the group and then it is a chore to get them back to where they belong.  I am afraid to get one of the dogs out to help since Jessie has caught one or two before and they didn’t make it.  So I run myself ragged just trying to get them in.  I have had to leave a c0uple out once or twice just for the sake of not being able to get them where they belong.

I keep my hens healthy by feeding them Egg Maker Complete Chicken feed.  This particular type of feed is designed to help the hens with all the nutrients they need in order to lay their eggs.  Love my Chicks!

Since I was a little girl I remember my mother teaching us to say a night time prayer,”Now I Lay me down to sleep, I pray dear Lord my soul to keep, if  I should die before I wake, I pray dear Lord my soul to take.”  I remember this as it was yesterday and I taught this same prayer to my children when they were little tykes.  Today you just do not hear the prayer much anymore and it is a real surprise when you hear a child pray these days.  God Bless those parents and grandparents that keep the power of prayer alive in their children.

I suppose you think it is funny for me to talk about prayer on a farm blog but if any one person knows about the power of prayer it is a farmer and his family.  We live by Faith and in order to have faith, prayer goes right along with it.  We look to the Lord our Father for a plentiful crop, for the rain when we need it, the sun when we need it and sometimes even when we don’t.  We depend on our Faith to keep us healthy in order to provide for our families and to tend to our crops and livestock.  We cannot always depend on the market to provide because it fluctuates constantly.  We have to depend on Faith to carry us through easy and happy times as well as the rough and tough times.  Faith is invisible yet we know it is real, we feel it every day just like the wind and through prayer we strengthen our Faith to help us through out our lives by talking to God and Trusting in Him.  God Bless us all.

I am writing about this today just because one of God’s beautiful creatures reminded me that we all have faith even if we aren’t human.  I took this photo of my kitten, Gizzer, while she was sleeping.  It just goes to show that all God’s creatures pray, at least that is what she looks like she is doing.  It was so adorable I had to share it with all of you.

 Just remember to keep your animals healthy and for Cats and Kittens try our Proud Paws Cat and Kitten food for great taste and good nutrition for your felines.