The Younger Chickens are Laying

I am excited to announce that, despite the cold, almost all the younger girls are laying. Maybe all. I'm not sure about Quail. I'll know for sure when we get two blue eggs or seven eggs out of the new coop in one day. We've been getting three to four eggs in varying shades of blue and green every day. Amy and Mary, the Ameraucana girls, haven't started laying again after their molt, so all of blue and green eggs you see are the new girls.

Some of the eggs are fertile. I heard Tooie crowing last night. Our little Cockatoo is now a fully fledged rooster.

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Lucky the Horse

    I made my mom her own Horace Jr. doll. And managed to make it in 4 instead of 7 hours! So it was finished for her birthday.

   As you know she wanted a black one to go with her rooster. Originally I was going to give it brown eyes, but mom suggested red. I think he looks pretty cool. She named him Lucky.


                 Thank you for reading Bats Bizarre's offical blog. Have a bat-tastic day!  

      

New Chickens: Nancy

*Note I was out of town yesterday and apparently picking a time and date under schedule doesn't make blogger publish the post then. I sorry for any inconvenience.*
   If you recall we had two new arrivals: Tooie, and a hen. This is the hen's story.  She is part Turken, also known as a necked-neck chicken. I say part because she has some feathers on the bottom of her neck (Thank Goodness.) and all the Turken pictures I have seen show a completely bald neck. I have no idea what the other part is. Something that lays very dark eggs, I guess, because not long after we got her we started getting a very dark egg almost every day.





   "I will never complain about Abe again. Ok I probably will..."

     We originally put her in the new coop, but she was a horrible bully to the other hens. Sunday morning found her standing on top of Handful pecking her. We couldn't have that. I caught her and threw her in the old coop, with her victim's larger and meaner parents; hoping they would, 'fix her wagon'. The minute I put her in the run Pecky started a fight with her. Abe was having none of that. He jumped in and started mixing it up with her. A minute later the Turken was running into the middle of the other hens to hide. Unfortunately, for her, she chose to hide next to the boss hen. The boss hen started pecking the Turken with Mohawk backing her up. The Turken ended up hiding in a nest box, her brief reign of terror over. Not that she doesn't try to restart it from time to time. Abe has to keep a constant eye on her.
    
  Here is a picture of her amongst the older girls, as you can see she is a large hen. We ended up naming her Nancy. No word yet whether she calls herself Lill.

Friday is Chinese New Year, here's hoping for a bat-tastic year of the horse.

                 Thank you for reading Bats Bizarre's offical blog. Have a bat-tastic day!

Horce Horse Jr.

   2014 is the year of the horse. It officially starts this Friday. Mom and I will be making eggrolls.

 
    I came up with Horace Jr. because I wanted to make a horse that could be displayed like my snakes. (We'll be leaving the snakes up because we'd miss them, and having a reptile in the home supposedly brings prosperity, so it'll all work out.)

   It took me 7 hours to knit the first Horace Jr.. Hopefully I will be able to get that time down. I know I spent a bit of it stopping to check the pattern's math and my assumptions and have a tendency to knit slower when I'm working on a new pattern. So, it might be possible.

  Right now I'm working on a solid black one for my Mom. She wanted one that would match her rooster ornament. It will probably become a variation on the listing with a photo.

I finished the head and body in one hour and thirty five minutes, but I still have to knit the I-cord legs, mane, and tail and sew it all together.


   Horace Jr. is a miniature version of my Horace Horse doll. He can stand on his own four feet.
Each Horse is 4 1/4" (10.795cm) tall not counting his ears when sitting up, 4" (10.16cm) on all fours, and 1 3/4" (4.445cm) wide.
 Like all of my work, each is signed with a small 'J' on the bottom.
A hook is not included.
 The yarn is 100% acrylic. Stuffing is 100% polyester. Machine washable with low heat on gentle/delicate cycle. Made in a smoke free environment. Custom colors are available; please ask before you order.
            Horace Jr. Ships every where.

Here is a link to the listing: https://www.etsy.com/listing/176453282/horace-horse-jr-chinese-new-year-doll
   
             Thank  you for reading Bats Bizarre's offical blog. Have a bat-tastic day!