Suet wildly popular at Larrapin
This photo is from a couple of weeks ago now, so now I can’t tell if this is one of the downy woodpeckers or one of the hairy woodpeckers that frequent the suet feeder. The downy is about half the size of the hairy. The hairy, true to the name, has small but dramatic white whiskers on either side of his beak, which is at least twice as long proportionally as the downy’s.
The suet is also a favorite of the red-bellied woodpeckers, nuthatches, and even the summer tanagers. The jays visit (only) occasionally (thank goodness). Even chickadees and carolina wrens will take a snack now and then. Most years we make our own suet blocks using lard, cornmeal, peanut butter, oatmeal and various yummy treats but this year we’ve gotten lazy and have bought blocks.
After the January 2009 ice storm, a local birder said on the radio that it might create some hard years for woodpeckers, because pretty much every stick of rotten or weakened wood — the very places woodpeckers find the grubs and bugs they eat — was now gone. Mother Nature can be a ferocious pruner of trees, as we learned very well in that experience. So we’ve been extra attentive to keep the suet feeder going longer in the year than we usually do. We many just continue year round now that they are spoiled. (You can buy or make suet that won’t melt in the heat. We have so many diners, it gets eaten in no time…but if you don’t have as many, watch out for mold and discard right away.)
Just the other day we watched at the kitchen window as a mother hairy woodpecker was joined at the suet by her youngster, who was very loud and demanding. Mom ate a few bites, then would stuff his gullet with suet a few times, then go back to eating. She had passed on the location of the best diner in town, the way we share directions around here for the best barbeque places!
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Read MoreBarn in Winter Sun
One pleasant thing about the erratic weather is that between cold fronts you get the occasional lovely day! Yesterday was in the 50’s and sunny. Perfect for a long walk about the place. Over the fence I can see the neighbors hay barn, show above. I love the way the afternoon sun shines on it in the winter, especially combined with the silver and golden winter grass.
My inner “Garden Clock” started stirring this week. Despite the arrival of the garden catalogs starting in late December, it was quiet. But yesterday I felt the first stirrings of the 2009 gardening season – within anyway! Soon I’ll be getting the monthly garden guide out (Thanks Arkansas Extension Service) and doing the little mental calculations to adjust the suggested dates, which are for Little Rock, to our slightly colder NW Arkansas. If I remember correctly, there’s stuff I can start planting as soon as mid to late February! OK, not much stuff, but a thing or two? I’ll check and let you know…
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden. It’s good to be back.
Read MoreAnd one more..
Couldn’t resist adding this one showing his little woodpecker head in action!
Better Buckeye Update- 12 weeks
I wasn’t happy with the photos of the Buckeyes I posted yesterday. I’ve been jumping back and forth between doing the blog photos at Flickr, uploading to Blogger directly (hence the small photos yesterday – that is my least favorite method…) and using the Picasa web albums now that there is a new Mac uploader. The last method seems to be working well. The photo size options are not the best – either the tiny 400px like yesterday, or the giant 800px below. (I prefer a nice 600px) But’s it’s fairly speedy and easy, so we’ll go with BIG photos!
So I went out to get some photos of the girls again at 12 weeks old. Tossed out some oats for them to snack on to keep the group close to the camera. Otherwise, they will come briefly to check out what you are doing, then most will wander away, while the handful of particularly chummy birds will stand so close that it’s hard to walk around without stepping on anybody.
Above is a group shot, mostly Buckeyes with a few Black Australorps thrown in. If you missed the post on why Buckeye chickens are pretty special, you can read about Buckeyes at the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy page here. You have to be careful though, on that website, or else you’ll find yourself with a new hobby of preserving heritage livestock like I did. It could be worse, I could have picked cows or horses to work with! (I wish I had that much land!) Anyway, it’s a great organization to join and their newsletters are really interesting.
But back to the Larrapin Buckeyes. Note the chicken bloomer shot above. Since I had tossed out oats, it became difficult to get any pics that included their heads, since they were VERY busy looking for those oats in the leaves. This is my sneaky way of making my chickens work for a living. All leaves get raked into the chicken pen, all scratch grains get tossed on the leaves. And presto, a month later the leaves are reduced to a finely ground leaf mold that is exquisite for a compost base or for mulching garden beds! This method words even faster if your chickens are in a smaller coop – you can pile in the leaves and they will work on them all day, every day!
Above is a good representative photo of the pullets at 3 months old. They have huge feet! If chicken are like puppies, these should grow up to be big girls!
Buckeye’s have lovely feathering, even if their coloring is pretty routine. The feathers are very distinctive and textured as you see above. Another characteristic in the literature that turns out to be VERY true is their need for a lot of space. These gals love to explore and wander the whole pen – a series of three paddocks. So I can see they would not like a constrained space. They are the ultimate free rangers it seems. I do note though, they like a long afternoon nap sprawled on the hay in the sun… Smart chickens.
This is one of the personable girls, saying, Hey, got anymore oats in your pocket?? They are very curious and like sparkly things – especially my ring. I switched to oats from cracked corn for scratch since the oats are supposed to be better for egg production. (Though that will be a while for these girls…) I’ll add some corn in over the winter for heat. The Buckeye’s are bred to be fine in Ohio winters, so Arkansas winters – even in the farthest NW corner where we are, should be a cakewalk for these girls. Note the very small pea combs – that’s to avoid frostbitten wattles in cold climates.
And then the guinea hoodlums show up, run all the girls off and the photo session is over. Thanks for getting to know the Buckeyes better. For folks with the room, they are a fine chicken to preserve.
Read MoreBuckeye Update- 12 weeks
The girls are growing up! Here’s a Buckeye pullet, about 12 weeks old, out for an afternoon stroll in the leaves..
And here’s the wide angle view of the gals out of their pen and strolling the grounds and nibbling on everything…luckily it’s late enough in the season that the nibbling doesn’t matter… The Buckeyes are comparable in size to the Black Australorps, which is pretty good.
And finally for this quick post today, a shot of one of the random hardware-store roosters I accidentally bought. I don’t know what kind he is, but he is beautiful, if shy. Well there’s a superquick poultry update before I dash off to work!
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