I'm dragging me feet going out to the coop this morning, its coming down gang busters. Bet the birds are fired up over this. Some of them have not experienced anything like this because we've had so little this year. A run in to town to pick a few building materials and I'll use the dried in coop to work in there today and get the pens started.

Looks like another chinchilla gray hatched this month. This one pair must like color a lot since there seems to be at least one gray hatched with every six eggs. Such a surprise since I had not even considered the idea of working with grays. I have someone who wants to trade one of her chinchillas with one of my light grays. This will be my first experience with shipping a bird myself. If all goes well it could open the door for shipping my birds on a regular basis.

Looks like my dogs have had enough of the rain and would like to come in. They're all huddled on the porch watching the water falling out of the sky. Poor things, can't go rip and tear like they would on a dry day.

I was watching my problem dog yesterday. Thought he was going to go play with the adult guinea flock. Then I reazlied the adult guineas were fired up about something. I kept looking, finally saw a cat sitting not far from the Guineas' coop. Alf took chase and much to my horror so did the guineas. Normally I would have let them do what they do best, chase off interlopers, problem was the cat ran in to a very overgrown wind row. No way was I going to let them get in there with a dog intent on chasing off a cat and them with a young keet with them. Took off running to head them off. Amazingly I was able to head them off. Promised them treats if they would come with me instead of being the hunters they so badly wanted to be. Treats won out. They came running in front of me, behind me, all around straight to their coop for treats. One advantage to training them young to come when called.

Well, I've delayed long enough. I need to get out to my chicken coop to check on the birds. I need to drag out all of my rain gear so I can get down there and stay reasonably dry. But I'm not complaining we need this so very bad.

The new coop is complete, sort of. We ran on 78 inch long piece of roofing short and had to order it in. I picked it up on Monday, the hubby installed it yesterday. We got the side on, I still have some connections to make and some paint to slap on before the rain gets here tomorrow. At least its this far, now I can work like made inside to get the pens together and start moving the birds.

We've had 1/2 inch of rain so far this month. That is really not a good thing. We had no rain in August, 3 inches in September. I'm guessing we're close to 20 inches down for the year. One positive though is that they think our Winter will be warmer.

Poultry meeting tomorrow evening. The last one before the show in November. Still tons to accomplish before November 10th but it will happen. The entries have started to roll in. I like it when they come in early.

I should mention the new boy has settled right in. He's still out with all of the girls, I don't have a pen left that I can put him in so he's been free for the past month. He's making his presence known. He runs at me and attempts to flog me, problem is I'm on the move so he hits the ground in a pile of feathers never having made contact. But he's stubborn, tries it everytime I show up. He does not seem to like it when I'm in a hurry which gets him all fired up. If I take my time and crouch down to talk to everybody he's just fine. Guess I can use him as a barameter for how busy I am.

Well, I really need to get back out and finish up outside. Have to say I'm enjoying myself. You all have a good rest of the weekend.

and he's simply gorgeous. I ran up to the big city yesterday to pick him up at the PO. I'm not used to these new bio boxes, he was quiet all during the trip home. I was getting just a bit concerned until I opened that box and set him out. Tons of attitude right out of the box, literally. He watched me with suspicion yesterday, with a hint of that rooster stance that says I'm the boss. I did notice that he's not liking the feed. I'll fix him some hand feeding formula this morning and find out what he was normally receiving. Can't wait to see what his chicks look like.

This weekend should see us drying the new coop in. I'm picking up caulk, paint and more lumber this morning. I'm so excited that this is finally happening. I need the space and the new configuration. The fact that I'll be able to clean my feeders and waterers right inside the coop will make life so much easier. Remember that dwarf? When cleaning things out I'm always dodging her because she's just got to be right in the middle of everything that is going on.

For those of you that are able to attend the Davy Crockett Classic in Lawrenceburg this November, I'm thinking of bringing the dwarf with me just for fun. She's just so much fun and travels so well. I should mention that if anyone would like a show catalogue to email me at this site or at the club's website; www.davycrockettclassic.com for a copy. I'll get one out to you right away.

We still need rain badly, just not this weekend. After that I don't care because most of what I'll do will be inside and dry.

Well, its time to go tempt the new boy with a treat to keep him boosted up until I can solve the feed problem. You all have a great day.

The dogs exploded at 2:00 AM. I got out of my nice warm bed, opened the door and they all charged out in to the dark. Was something out there? I have no clue. But with young dogs and full moons the two can get confused easily in their little heads. I've had raccoon problems since the temps dropped so there was no way I wouldn't let them go. They returned to the house about 15 minutes later but by that time I was awake. Awake enough that it was 3:30 AM before I went back to sleep. Let's just say I'm doing the minimum at this point until I can take a little nap.

I did rearrange the birds' outside yard this morning. Moved the fence around to new, lush green grass. They stood right at the egde of where the fence had been and wouldn't cross in to the new spot. I kneeled on the grass and called them to me. Of course the first one to brave the new territory was my ugly little dwarf (her pic is on the website) but then she's just not intimidated by much of anything. That's when the rest started spilling over that imaginary line and started talking excitedly.

My second group of keets is beginning to mature rapidly. I'm going to have to pull King out of his pen and put this group in his pen soon. Fix so that they no longer have access to the main chicken coop before I have another head injury to deal with.

One of our dogs is one heck of a jumper. He's been sailing over our 4 foot stock fence like it isn't even there. We did extensive work on the fences this summer. One of the things we did was run a line of barb wire over the stock fence. Well, it stopped him. I saw him hit that wire and bounce back in to a pile on the ground. I thought for sure he's have some injury but there was nothing when I checked his belly and chest. I can just about guarantee he'll study the situation and give it another try in the future. Darn dog is SMART. Which makes my job so much tougher trying to out think him.

You all have a great day, I'm going to have a slow one.