Time to end the hiatus and start blogging about chickens again.

The winter is tapering off and changes are in the air. An electrician came and rewired the part of the barn we use, doubling the number of lights and even installing an electrical outlet in the coop area so I can do things like plug in heat lamps for chicks and water heaters for winter use.

I currently have one surviving chicken - the white female Cochin, Lady Poof-A-Lot. She currently lives in the stall with the goats, perching up on one of the hand-hewn timbers, far out of reach of marauding coyotes.

So it's soon coming time to restock the birds. Will I wait and place my carefully considered order with McMurray Hatchery, or will I fold when I walk into Tractor Supply and find Chick Days in progress? We shall see.

Before I do that, however, I need to do a few things:

1. Clean up the tack room and make space for the spring order of hay.
   
   
2. Rebuild part of my restraining fence over the manger that the goats knocked down over the winter.
   
   
3. Refloor the back half of the chicken coop to make certain that it's secure from any rodential predators.
   
   
4. Design and build a new goat gate, one that cannot be ripped off the wall by enthusiastic young goats looking to do a little exploring (along with poaching some of that tasty chicken feed).
   
   
5. Possibly working on my dear spouse to see if she could be convinced to keep a dog. I'm looking at breeds with some herding background that are also suitable as house pets, so to earn its keep. I'm also thinking that some dog urine periodically splashed around the barn would be good to discourage certain kinds of predators.
   
   
6. I also need to build some new nest boxes. The old ones were half-eaten in the last goat attack. I'll have some time to work on this, though, because Lady Poof-A-Lot is the only one who will be laying come nicer weather. I might cobble something together using those five gallon buckets I get at the bakery - but on the other hand, I'd like to build something with a lift-off top that's easier to get to the eggs. We'll see.

As you can see there's lots to do. I'm looking forward to it. I've missed the exercise I got from working with the birds. I've missed having the eggs and we're down to our last couple of birds in the freezer, the culls before the unfortunate coyote business. Yeah, and I've missed having the birds themselves.

So. Temperatures in the tolerable range through the weekend. Time to see what I'll be able to get done.

NEXT (or Soon): The Tale of the Two Lost Goats