Back in the Saddle

As many of you know, we have 11 Hooligans.  9 hens, 2 roosters  We knew going into this, that 2 roosters might be too many, but we weren't willing to get rid of any.  Unfortunately until we do something about a rooster, the girls are paying the price. Optimal is one rooster per 12-20 hens.  Our other issue is the Buckeye roosters are enormous, they run right around 9 lbs, and the hens at around 4-5 lbs. 

Since the girls were being roughed up a bit, loosing feathers near their tails, and have exposed red skin.  I also don't want to move into the summer months, with mosquito season upon us and risk disease and/or infection.  We needed to try something.  I ordered chicken saddles.  Now I only have 2-3 hens with issues, and they're likely the favorites,  I still ordered a saddle for each girl.  Anticipating that next fall the hens will likely go into a molt, they could use the extra protection and warmth, and not knowing how long they'll actually hold up, I wanted reserves.

I ordered each hen a different color saddle.  They were just too cute.  These seem to be well made, and I only paid $5.00 per saddle, including freight.  Here's where I ordered them from:

Louises Country Closet

(I'm not getting paid, I like to share information on small businesses that do a good job)

Here's one of my girls wearing her saddle.  Looks more like one of my grandma's aprons!  You can also see the size difference between her and The General.

D2 (daughter #2), came home for the weekend, and helped us at the Compound Sunday.  We had a good laugh at Miss Izzy's expense.  Miss Izzy has been on quite a roll with regards to catching rats.  She has some favorite haunts around the Compound, and one of them has been a piece of black tubing used for french drains.  Now we're not sure what has been living in there, but we do know something has been in there.  She's never wrong! 

 A lizard did come out of the tube.

The fiend was back at it again in the garden. We set up a trap in the garden, and hopefully we'll catch the thief and destroyer of perfectly ripened tomatoes.



Have a good week!  Thanks for following along!