The Bad Egg

And then there was The End

thebadegg — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 03:23:50 +0000

Well, a lot has changed over the last few months. As a result of the economy, etc., etc., the S.O. is going back to school full-time and I am taking a salaried position. My new job is not in Sacramento, so we’ve moved from the house into an apartment. Most places for rent are not too keen on dogs and cats, let alone chickens. The Dog and The Cat are with us, but we have given the chickens up to good homes. Wanda, Frida and Flo are still living in a Sacramento backyard, while Mildred, Gerty and Stella have taken a trip across the river and now reside in a West Sacramento backyard.

I am writing this post to officially close down the blog. I’ll probably leave everything up for awhile, but I have no plans to post anything new after this one. The S.O. and I are intent on finding pastured eggs near our new place–they just taste better! But that’s all the plans related to chickens that we have right now. Down the road, if we are in a position to be allowed chickens again, trust me, we’ll raise them. They are too easy and the eggs are too delicious!

Anyways, here are some goodbye photos:

Goodbye!

Size Matters

thebadegg — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:00:56 +0000

The adult chickens are definitely talking about the two month old chicks even though they like to pretend they don’t care. We can’t let the old and the new mix until the new chicks are full grown, otherwise I’ve read I’ll be inviting violence, mayhem and death.

Just look at Frida and Wanda plotting with each other already:

It’s hard to see, but the chicks are in the pen. They are still that small compared to the adult chickens.

Chicks in the Hay

thebadegg — Mon, 03 May 2010 14:00:28 +0000

Mildred (the light colored one) has no fear of me or The Dog. She pecked at my fingers and grabbed for The Dog’s whiskers the other day. The Dog whined, but otherwise let her attempt to pull a whisker out.

First Day Outside

thebadegg — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:41:46 +0000

Let’s just say The Dog is very interested in the new family members:

Spring Chickens!

thebadegg — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 01:24:41 +0000

I am definitely one of those people affected by lack of sunlight (called Seasonal Affective Disorder). To put it succinctly, and possibly melodramatically: when I don’t get enough sunlight, my soul darkens. Now that the sun is shining again in Sacramento, I actually have the energy to start this blog up again. It’s not just me though. Wanda, Frida and Flo understand the need for sunlight too.

Chickens won’t lay eggs unless they get 12-14 hours of sunlight per day. Lots of people add artificial lights to their chicken coops in order to ‘trick’ the chickens into laying eggs like normal, but not us. I know they are not laying eggs as a sign of protest against the sun disappearing. If I were in their shoes I’d be protesting too, so no artificial light. What that means though, is the S.O. and I (and The Dog) have been negotiating over who gets to eat the 4-6 eggs per week we’ve been getting these last few months.

Maybe 4-6 eggs per week seems like a lot of eggs to some of you, but we had been used to about 20 eggs per week. Let me tell you, breakfast has been a bit of a battleground! Well, it could have been if my S.O. hadn’t been nice enough to just let me have the egg when there wasn’t enough for both of us.

Still, the S.O. and I have been going through withdrawals and The Dog, well, The Dog is not happy that he’s gone without eggs for months.

There’s only one acceptable solution to a problem like this–meet Mildred, Gerty and Stella!

Birth-date February 25th, 2010. More pics and updates soon

The End of…2009

thebadegg — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:47:28 +0000

I think this picture nicely sums up the effects of the last year of events on our household:

The Dog decided his favorite stuffed animal was no longer his favorite.

I try not to write about troubles any larger than your average backyard chicken, but some evils cannot be born–like say, the incident of the pomegranate tree killer. Other troubles are so large…this is just not that kind of blog.

Most people have had to scale back on, well, everything–that’s definitely us this year. In a lot of ways it’s a good thing, but being forced to do something isn’t as fun choosing to do it. One thing I did actively choose to do was to scale back on goals for the coming year. To me, goals imply that an individual has agency, time and effort to complete the goals, but life over the last year showed our household that this is very far from the truth.

But, and.

Wishes–that’s a different story. I think of a wish as something I would like to be true or to happen, even though I know it might be unlikely given the circumstances. I have plenty of wishes for the New Year–things I wish to dwell on, develop, create, cultivate. A wish is something nice that might or might not happen; it’s out of my control. A wish not coming true feels disappointing, but a goal left uncompleted feels worse, like a personal failure. A wish fulfilled–it’s like an unexpected gift.

So here are some wishes for the New Year:

I wish for time and energy. Time and energy to plant a garden, raise a few more chickens, take more photos, read lots of books, hike in beautiful places with the S.O. and The Dog, enjoy the rain, enjoy the sunshine, steal a few oranges from the fruit tree belonging to the vacant house next door, work on my writing projects–and the list goes on, but you get the idea.

I also wish all of you lots of time and energy to pursue what you love in the New Year!

Winter in Sacramento

thebadegg — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:40:57 +0000

We were supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow here in Sacramento yesterday. Our house didn’t get any snow, but I know other people in the area who said theirs did. This kind of thing happens maybe once every 20 years or so in Sacramento. I think the last time was in 1990.

Anyways, no snow, but lots of rain yesterday. Lots of ice this morning:

Coming soon: The Rat Problem, Wanda’s Foot Surgery and SAD Chickens.

The Flour Thief

thebadegg — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:41:34 +0000

This is what we came home to over the weekend–I wonder who the culprit is?

Designer Chicken Coops

thebadegg — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:47:48 +0000

Check out this gallery of images to get you dreaming about what your future chicken coop could look like … come on, I know you want one of your very own.

My favorites are the ones with a living roof, like this one:

Thanks to Melanie for the link.

Bashful? Maybe Not.

thebadegg — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:00:52 +0000

Bashful?

Maybe Not: