I forgot to take the picture of today's egg before I... oh, but I haven't written about my project here yet.
Tehát az a projekt lényege, hogy minden nap begyűjtöttem ugye a tojásokat a csirkéktől. Ezeket a tojásokat aztán kiosztottam azoknak a fellow-knak, akik érdeklődést tanusítottak a projekt iránt. 6 emberrel keztem, de aztán ez összesen 10 ember lett. A 10 tojást szétosztottam és mindenki azt csinálhat vele, amit akar. Az első tojás már meg is van. Ursula műve:
Egg from Day 1, and the first finished Art Egg, from Ursula Achternkamp:
Unfortunately, the quality of my photos leave much to be desired, since it is only a lowly phone camera, and none too good either, but Sybille Neumeyer, a graphic designer here will take pictures of the whole series when they are done and she takes beautiful photos. So this is only a kind of taste.
As you can see, this is a water tower (egg tower) and a small shack. The egg has a band-aid on top of it, a kind of "repair" where there was a hole in the "tower." It's wonderful! I am very pleased and happy!!!!
So today I forgot to take a picture of the egg before I distributed it to the person in charge of working with the egg for day 10. I suppose I will survive.
And NOW... for the description of the big day with the chicks!!! FINALLY!
This day was a Wednesday. Ursula and I woke early to clean out the whole hen house. On this day, I also got to pick up my first real chicken. This was Ise, of whom there are many pictures. She is the big white hen, whose eggs I have come to recognize now and I'll tell you how in a minute.
So at 9, I was up and waiting, ready for action. Little did I know how much action there would be!!! We let the chicks out and collected only 2 eggs. I was the one who was allowed to collect the eggs. I took them from the hay behind the ladder but it was clear that 2 eggs was not enough. We had disturbed the chicks in their holy hour of laying. But we shooed them out of the house and closed the door behind them so they would stay out on the run and not in the house. We scooped out all the hay and began cleaning everything with soapy water, sponges and brushes. It was dirty business, but I did not mind at all. We both made a mess of ourselves, while the chicks outside protested, not liking the fact that we were mussing about with their home. Ursula did most of the inside of the house while I scoured the roosts, the door, the walls and the very front of the house with a brush. We had to change the cleaning water once bc it got dirty so fast! I washed off the 3 bowls (two for their seed mix -- one goes outside and the other inside -- and the other for a kind of grit and stones) and Ursula showed me how the water dispenser works. I put out the water and some seed, and we fixed up the little covered area with hay (or straw?) so if the two chicks who have not laid yet should choose to do so, then they can have a place to do it. They ate and drank, but then I had to change their water again because they got leaves in it.
When we got the whole house cleaned and dry -- it was not easy, as chickenshit sticks when it dries -- Ursula got out some paint and proceeded to paint the inside of the house to insulate it against rain. She said that the house was made of poor wood and the wetness leaked in. It was a terribly windy day, so it was hard to do our tasks. Also, the doors in and out of the castle are incredibly heavy and not opening-friendly at all, so getting in and out was a challenge. She painted the inside with a roller beautifully while I painted their ramp with a smaller brush. Ursula was really professional. I was not so great but I managed to cover the ramp with white paint. But now came the trying part. In addition to the wind, it started to rain. This was no great help with getting the paint to dry. We had to keep opening and closing the door of the coop with each new rush of drizzle.
Also, the seed had been spilled because the bag got wet and as the maintenance man here picked it up, the bag ripped and the contents spilled. So we shoveled up all the seed and put it in some mail crates. We took all the chickens' stuff to a workshop studio here to keep the dry straw and seeds and stuff away from the smoking area, where it had been stored till now. So we transferred everything in the drizzle. It wasn't cold because we were working and it was great fun to make the chicks' house all pretty and fresh.
Somewhere in the meantime there, I picked up Ise. Ursula showed me how. She sometimes lets Ise out of the front door while the others are out on the run. Ise struts around and pecks at the grass showing the others that she is out. But she doesn't dare go far away. Ursula said you have to come up behind her and then she will crouch down and you pick her up by cupping your hands around the wings. She picked up Ise and handed her to me, but I was scared and Ise started flapping so I put her down. We tried again. This time was better. As Ise's little feet hung in the air, I could feel her little heart beating. I only held her for a few seconds but it was amazing. I will have to do it again.
Then, another great thing happened with Ise. I saw the moment she laid the egg! This is how I know which ones she lays. It was a perfectly symmetrical egg and kind of longish. It was light brown. The others pecked at it. Then, later, I saw that Nina had lower herself onto Ise's egg. And she had also laid one, but this I didn't actually see come out. This was a smaller, darker one. So now we know that Ise and Nina lay brown eggs. If I would spend more time with the chicks, I would figure out whether Alma (small white) or Lucia (black) lays the white egg.
So Ise's egg No. 7a. I set aside and did not include it in the project. I will maybe do something with it on my own.
So we were still stuck at waiting for the paint to dry. We had coffee till then and went up to Ursula's room and I looked at her bird things. We share a love for birds and Bauhaus.
Later I went up to my room to cook and one of us always went out to open or close the door and to wipe out the water, depending on what was going on with the precipitation. Finally, Ursula deemed the coop dry and arranged the straw. I watched this from my room. Then I went downstairs to take a picture of the clean coop. It was beautiful! I was proud of our work, and now I know what exactly the demands are of keeping hens. Of course, I would only truly know this if I would get up every morning to let them out and feed them and clean and water them, then give them lunch and then closing them up at night. Right now I am only a part-time chicken access worshiper. I don't know if my life will ever be ordered enough for me to actually keep chickens. At the moment, I will be sad to leave these little ones.
Here are some pictures.
The coop, BEFORE cleaning (yuck):
on this pic u can see where they go to lay their eggs. It is obvious who we were disturbing here.
Ursula checking the paint job:
the straw is in the blue bag. we had to cover it against the rain.
The coop, AFTER cleaning: (nice!)
And> we might have spent half a day cleaning and scrubbing and painting, but all I got here was a picture of the hens' opinion of being shut out of their house all day. :))))
Chicken butts, all 4:
And that concludes my summary of the big day with the chicks.
Today I was outside for only a short time. Nina was hogging the sand bath, which, at the moment, was more like a mudbath.
Tomorrow I get to close up the coop for the nite. RESPONSIBILITY!!! :))))))))))))
