Hello from Chicken Paradise Hawaii — Pen-chan and I say hi! It’s a cloudy day today.
Beer grains for the chickens
A local craft beer shop gave us their spent grains — what’s left over after brewing. It’s a mix of corn and wheat, and it smells very fermented. The shop told me chickens will eat it if you scatter it on the ground, but when I tried, nobody touched it. So instead I used it in place of the water in their usual mash. It doesn’t look very pretty.
The verdict? They gobbled it up just as eagerly as always. The little ones tried it too, and if anything they seemed to like it even more. From what I read, fermented grain is easier for chickens to digest, and since everyone seems to enjoy it, I’m going to keep using it.
Today’s garden
The tomato seedlings I planted are still tiny, but they all look healthy. These are Group A. Group B are seedlings in their own pots, to be planted out once they’re bigger. Group C, right next to them, is the left-to-fend-for-themselves squad. Let’s see how far each group gets!
The hibiscus has a new bud about to open, and the sweet pea sprouts, which were just peeking out of the soil at first, are now about 5 cm tall. From home I brought lettuce and cucumber seedlings I’d sprouted, one lone broccoli, and a few strawberry plants, all for the second row of the garden. The lettuce went in, then the broccoli — it’s hopelessly wilted, so I don’t know if it will make it. Cucumbers are next. Water every day, and fingers crossed!
Music for Dolly
Today I tried playing some music for Dolly. Dolly, it’s for listening, not for sniffing! In the end it did look like she was listening. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
Meet Glico
Glico is a Mille Fleur Barbu d’Uccle. When she was little she was all this brown color, like caramel, so she got the name Glico. She was sick a lot as a chick, and more than once I thought we would lose her, but she made it safely to adulthood. Even as an adult she once spent almost a year in a near-comatose state, but the treatment was worth it, and today she’s healthy and laying eggs again.
She’s a pet-type chicken, the kind that gets friendly on her own without you even trying. She loves digging for bugs, but she isn’t very good at catching them, so she’s always squawking angrily: I can’t get it, I can’t get it!
Thank you for watching Chicken Paradise! See you in the next episode.