Addressing animal needs

So I had a lot to do when I got home last night, pretty much all of it had to do with taking care of the animals.  I headed out to the chickens first.  I pulled out their water and food dispensers so I could work on removing the lower level perch bar that was in the way.  The work environment was not very pleasant.  The area had a considerable amount of chicken shit on the ground which in turn attracted an even more considerable amount of flies.

The chickens were curious what I was doing.  One of them came over to me a couple times assuming I had something for her to eat since that is what they associate me with.  I held up my screwdriver, allowing the chicken to peck it to verify it wasn’t edible, before going back to work.  Pulling out the perch allowed me to move the food container freely, relieving the congestion that existed previously.  My eventual plan is to mount the perch at the end of the auxiliary run where it will be easily accessible without being in the way.  I will coordinate that with replacing the chicken wire on the top of the run which is getting brittle and rusty in spots.

I then cleaned and refilled the chicken’s water and food.  The water coming out of the hose was warm because the water equipment bakes in the afternoon sun.  I went inside and grabbed a bunch of ice cubes to knock the temp down before putting it back inside the coop.  The food had some poop in it as well, reenforcing the need to use a smaller, hanging, covered food dispenser in the future.

I then tackled the not fun job of giving the dogs a bath solo.  Cindy offered to help but she was stuck at work late and I didn’t feel like waiting.  Nicki just sat calmly in the tub as I suds-ed her up, Sadie is much more of a pain in the ass to try to do solo.  She insists on creeping forward and pushing her head over the edge of the tub during bathing which results in both her and myself getting thoroughly soaked in the process.  After I was done washing them both my shirt and shorts were very wet and hairy.

Last night we fed the chickens more treats including leftover salad greens and spinach pasta.  They seemed to really like the pasta, perhaps as much as strawberries.  It’s funny seeing them take turns stealing food from each other.  They also had spurts of chasing each other around, we aren’t sure if it was outright aggression or just chicken play.  Hopefully this weekend we can let the chickens free range around the yard a bit although it won’t be without us in the same general vicinity standing guard.