I was up and at it a bit late today.  Finally after a cup of coffee I made it out to do the morning chores.  I fed the cats and then the pigs.  After that I let the chickens out to free range.  I had to go back in the house to get something, and when I came out, a chicken was parading down the stack of hay making the “look what I just did” chicken sound and looking proud.  Sure enough I found this in their newly discovered nest.

New nest with a freshly laid egg in it

Since it was raining, the barn was full of cats and chickens and it did not take the chickens long to discover the cat food. Grrrrrr!

Chickens in the barn on a rainy day. Get out of the cat food!

I put out some feed to distract them, but ended up having to move the cats and their food elsewhere.  (btw – the red hen above is looking right at the cats breakfast spot)

Cats chowing down after being moved

I try to get the cats eating first so they will be finished before the chickens start to pester them.  Didn’t work today.

So… on to the afternoon chores.  I went to the feed store and was able to find some layer-premix which I’ll use to make home made chicken feed.  I have enough to make 2000 lbs of layer.  Yikes!  Anyway, I had fun trying to figure out the ratios of base to premix, but I think I did ok.  I’ll mix it 50 lbs at a time.

While doing all this in the barn cats and chickens were running everywhere since it was still raining.  No more photos of that, but you can get the idea.

I also fed the pig and ended up picking 5 gallons of mangrels from their pen.  The pigs are still to young to handle the mangrels without them being chopped up.  I may try to cook up a “mash” to encourage them to eat them.  Here they are laid out in the barn to dry up a bit.

Mangrels laid out to dry

They are small as mangrels go, but i’m not complaining… this garden season was a bomb for us, so I’m happy to have anything.

Last but not least, one of the cats ventured up top in the barn and could not figure out how to get down.  Some loud meowing attracted my attention, so I climbed up for a “cat rescue.”  Here is the happy cat “post-rescue”.  Notice the sound.

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