Hello from Chicken Paradise Hawaii — with this hen, who is complaining as usual because she still doesn’t have a name. Today is cloudy.
The hen with no name
The one going “po-po-o” at me was born in spring 2023, so she’ll soon turn one. She grew up with about nine brothers and sisters. I kept trying to think of a name, but nothing quite fit, and a whole year went by! For some reason she’s very attached to me. She’s always complaining, and she has a rather fierce look in her eyes. How am I supposed to think of a nice name when she talks like that? Maybe we’ll dig for earthworms later.
Tsuyoshi and Inazuma made an appearance, too. A tomato plant that sprouted all by itself keeps growing and already has cute little fruit. And this is the little tortoises’ house: they’re growing slowly but surely.
Fence repair, continued
Here’s the latest on the fence repair I’ve been working on. Part of our fence was a soft material any animal could tear through. Chickens getting in was no problem, and there aren’t many predators, so I didn’t worry. But the goats love chicken feed and kept breaking in. Coming in is one thing, but then they leave a big hole behind — and the goats certainly aren’t going to fix it! Chickens wandered out and got lost, and my temporary patches stopped working, so I put up proper steel mesh. Yagiko, Haku and Sapphire show up along the way.
It’s called hardware cloth: steel with a fine grid of about one centimeter. A chicken’s foot won’t get caught in it, and it keeps out big rats, which is handy for small cages. In America many people use chicken wire — it’s named for chickens, after all — but I already knew it was surprisingly weak, and trying it here proved it, so I switched.
Hens out of the nest boxes
The big kids’ room is packed like a rush-hour train again today, with hens crammed into the nest boxes. It may look rough, but if they stay in there they can get unwell, stop eating and grow weak, and left alone some can even die. So now and then I take them out by force.
If I don’t put them down far away, they come straight back, so I toss them out. They fight back with everything they’ve got, which makes it hard work. I toss and toss, and they keep coming back. It’s endless! Lots of eggs today, though.
In the little ones’ room, everyone is eating well. Another happy day. Thanks, everyone, and thank you for watching! See you in the next episode.