First new batch pics

we have here six new girls who have gotten big enough to move out to the expanded coop. two tetra tints and four golden comets.

New Chicks

New chicks have arrived, bringing our total to 17. Spek has promised to bring some bloggy goodness and updates to Knoll Acre this summer.

Posts to begin anew soon.

Eggbound (by the way who made that stupid name anyway) Chicken in the house

One of the chickens is egg bound. this is when a chickens egg is too big to fit through the opening that eggs, stool and urine pass through. (and i am using scientific terms for all the faint stomached). Anyway, we're talking major diarrhea. in fact she just had a bout of very runny poo. anyway she's in the living room under a laundry basket over on of tucker's rugs and assorted rags. poor thing. we will post pictures of the chicken later. Hope we don't have anymore reason to shoot oil up chickens butts anymore. Yes, that is what you must do for an eggbound chicken. i take this opportunity to post how a chicken lays an egg.

bye for now,

spek

Laying Eggs From A Hen's Perspective

Chickens, as well as other birds, have a common opening for reproduction, and for the evacuation of stools and urine. This opening is called the "vent". They do not have a bladder because their urine is not a fluid. It is a white paste, called urates, that you can observe surrounding the droppings. The intestine, ureters and oviduct come together into a common chamber called the cloaca. This is a rather dirty place, whereas the egg is always clean and almost sterile when laid.

The hen turns part of the cloaca and the last segment of the oviduct inside out, "like a glove." The described red membrane is then everted inside of these organs. The egg emerges far outside, at the end of the bulge. So it cannot contact the walls of the cloaca and get contaminated by stools or urine. Moreover, the intestine and inner part of the cloaca are kept shut by the emerging egg, and their contents cannot leave when the hen strains to deliver the egg. Therefore, eggs are always clean as they are laid. However, sometimes a hen, stomping around the nest with dirty feet, will get the egg dirty anyway. *KnollAcre would like to comment that if you barf at any time during this post it's your own dumb fault for reading it and that we are not responsible in any way shape or form.

Gardeny Goodness

Don't let tucker near big piles of straw, because he will not just dig it it. or eat it. or combine the two.
He will burrow under it.
The dirt will be ruined.
And he will eat your tiny strawberry plants. Or try to, since mom will get there first. He will then proceed to try to run though the solid mesh fence to eat your chickens. trust me, I know. I saw it. It was pretty dang funny too.

As you can probably tell, Knoll Acre's fabulous fresh-grown fruits and veggies are back, or at least in the ground. And so, might I add, are some sticks, hammered in by moi. Never buy sticks that have points at the end from Agways unless you are Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The do not work. They splinter and fall apart and you're standing there in the middle of some straw with a chicken crazed dog tying circles around the stupid stick that you probably couldn't even use to kill a vampire much less hammer into the ground to tell where the tomatoes are if you somehow don't know that tomatoes are the round red things that are good squeezed to a bloody mash and served on hot dogs and hamburgers and the stupid dog is tying you up and your wonder why you even bothered to wake up this morning and you should just give up already and go eat some cake.

There's probably a limit on words I'm about to pass so bye-la for now!
-Spek

Hello loyal followers! how are you?
Beautiful day today, and we hope you are having a fabulous weekend.
Happy Martin luther king jr day!in honor of this great man, we are posting a good job martin luther king jr picture fest. all good things we have thanks to him! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Hey all peeps

Wassup people!
First off, we'd like to wish you all a happy new year and a merry/happy __________. We hope you all enjoyed your various vacations.

And now some sad news: unfortunately one of our beloved girls was rendered deceased by a hawk (No good predators!) All of the others unscathed. And they are okay with the cold. They hate the snow though. Won't stick their beaks out of the coop if there's a half millimeter of snow on the ground.

And now I must say adieu, for it is time to read the Sister's Grimm (which I highly recommend.)
Bye all personages!
Spencer

A boy and his dog

A Very Birdy New Year

Birds!!!!

Tucker Movie

More Tucker Pictures

Chelsea Ingalls Wilder

now a moving picture...

Welcome Tucker

Our new Vizsla, Tucker... What a killer...

Duck trip shots

Thanks to John for setting this up.

Eggs and Hunger Games

That's right, folks, eggs! E-G-G-S! We've had a steady flow of eggs coming in since August. Chicks are fine, getting bigger and bigger. For any Suzanne Collins fans out there, Catching Fire is out and even better than the first Hunger Games. we hope that you loyal reader out there will take my suggestion to READ THE HUNGER GAMES(see chickens frollick in their new digs)! One of the best books ever. I couldn't put it down. When I read the Hunger Games i spent all day curled up in it. If you don't believe me, ask my parents. Catching Fire was, if anything, better.
Well, loyal blog followers, it's time to go down for breakfast.
Lots of Love,
(for Catching Fire)
Spencer

Chicks Pics

New Eggs!

Our Humblest Apologies for our LOng Absence Of New Posts

We apologize for not blogging for so long but we were called away on urgent buisness.
Please acept our apologies. they are most sincere.
Anyho, bye!
Luv,
spek

Welcome Briley and Braxton

Way to go Sam and James... We love you.

The Girls with the Girls

St Jenna of Assisi

Quite the end of school party

So Spencer, Tess, Mary, Jenna and Maggie got together with Caroline and Chelsea for a school's out party and the chickens were quite the hit.

Nightline report on backyard chickens in NYC

Follow this link to a Nightline story about raising chickens in NYC. Nice, but surely small and expensive coop for three chickens, eh?

Updated Chicken Pics

Chickens. Word!

yo!

so as y'all know, our peepers are in the chicken shack and are not really peepers anymore- they're chickens! And her's a note to all future vistors- if there is a chicken next to the door, and you open the door, it will try to get out. Not that the chicken in question did, but just a little heads up.Most of the gals get the ladder now, there are only two that do not.

sorry i haven't bloggrd in a while though. 

Luv,

SpEk