Chickens & OM

I didn't think we'd be getting any new chicks this year.  Just a couple months ago, we had 11 hens and 2 ducks and lots of eggs!

Then our male duck would not stopping mating with a Rhode Island Red chicken - not only was this physically dangerous for the hen, but it was also just disturbing to watch and he wasn't mating with the duck hen at all!  So my idea of hatching out Spring ducklings was lost.  We found a new home for the ducks on Craigslist with a farm full of ducks (no chickens!) and even a pond.

Then, we had a rather traumatic chicken death last week - (if you get queasy easily, please don't read this paragraph).  The hen had laid an egg and apparently pushed too hard and it was a little bloody.  Unfortunately, chickens have a natural tendency to peck at red things, and this hen had a good bit of intestines pulled out by other hens.  When I discovered the poor hen, I tried my best to quickly dispatch of her, but I had never killed a chicken before.  It was harder than I thought, but a hatchet did the job.  The kids got to witness the circle of life right up close that day.

 Then Bobby helped out dispatching a chicken tonight, as it was just generally unhealthy and not a pleasant addition to our flock.  But this post is not all about chicken death and weird mating habits!  We got new babies today!!  2 Buff Orpingtons and 2 Easter-Eggers have joined our flock.  They are only 4 weeks old, so are in a seperate area from the big girls until they catch up in size.  ZB is SO glad she is old enough to hold them, and she really does a great job!

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And on to OM news - now that all the problems have been presented at World Finals, I can post videos!

I think the most of exciting news of the day is - we just found out that Clay's team placed 12th in a tough competition of 60 other teams at World Finals!!!!  Congratulations to them!!

Here is Clay's team doing their performance in Michigan just yesterday.  In their problem, they had to construct 3 small vehicles, each with a different propulsion system.  The vehicles had to deliver parts of an animal to a certain spot.  The kids then had to assemble the animal and make it do a trick:


And here is Reed's team doing their own problem at the Regional Competition last February.  They had to show 2 different characters with behaviors that would be considered odd in one situation, but normal in another situation: