Hounds in the Kitchen Merch! {Wordless Wednesday}

I love the new Hounds in the Kitchen logo so much I want to wear it!

I used Skreened to upload the design and print on an American Apparel ethically made baseball shirt. I know the owner and several employees at Skreened and love to support their sustainable business. The best part of ordering from Skreened is that their location is only a mile from the house so I can pick up!

If you want to sport the Hound look, I uploaded four versions of the design - large and centered like on the shirt above, a chest emblem, medium logo for a tote bag, and large logo on the back. The cool thing about Skreened is that you can choose the shirt style (short sleeve, hoodie, etc.), color, and size for any of the Hounds in the Kitchen designs. They print quickly (my order was done in less than 24 hours!), ship around the world and have a pick-up location at I-71 and Hudson in Columbus.

Disclosure: I receive a few bucks commission off Hounds in the Kitchen shirts sold through Skreened. A girl's gotta buy groceries once in awhile.

She Was Hiding Something

Can you spy the oddity in this picture? How about the chicken egg behind the bush?Which, upon looking closer, turned out to be a whole nest of eggs. It seems our chicken Austra has been laying for quite some time.

We had our suspicions when her feathers grew back in completely and comb turned characteristically bright red, a sign of egg production.

Then last week, we came home from a short walk and the dogs were at odds with each other. We stopped big hound Devie from barking and uncovered the desired object from little hound Hawise: a pale pinkish brown chicken egg. On the couch. Inside the house. Could they have brought an Austra egg in from the yard? But she hadn't left any in the nest box in months! When I uncovered the eggs on Saturday, we knew we had to reacquaint Austra with her nest box. She was going broody - sitting on the eggs and trying to hatch them - but we couldn't have her laying eggs on the ground where they might freeze or be crushed or snatched by a dog.

We moved several of the ill-lain eggs to our designated nest box. Shut inside for a bit, Austra settled the bedding into a nest and laid an egg in the proper spot.

Later, to the tune of her anxious clucks, I removed all the other eggs and raked up the leaves. I even pulled up the cover evergreen, a plant that doesn't quite belong in that place. Yesterday, we could find no egg in the nest box or Austra's ground nesting place. We all wonder where the next egg will be hiding.

Mothering A Molting Hen

This is the face of our molting Australorp hen, Austra. Her pin-like feathers look prickly and uncomfortable. Austra is a generally affable character but molting makes her seem frenzied. I say comforting things to her and only joke about the awkwardness of her feather loss behind closed doors like every good chicken mom.Her roost in the morning appears as though a pillow exploded overnight. The nest box hasn't held an egg for over a week. I added excess bedding to be sure our chicken stays warm despite feather loss.

As Austra helps to put the garden beds to rest, one witnesses the full molt. Her downy feathers are showing beneath the missing top feathers. She is eating constantly to fuel growing new clothes. I am feeding her scraps from the kitchen as always and tossing bird seed into her run for extra fun and nutrition.

On the upside, when the molt is complete in a few weeks, her singed tail feathers will be replaced. Our Austra will be returned to her former iridescent black glory, not to molt again for another year.

Have you ever watched a hen molt? I still find everything about chicken rearing fascinating.

Added to Simple Lives Thursday.

The Making of a Cover Model Chicken

Our australorp hen is on the cover of this week's Columbus Alive! Read raising the roost about keeping 'pets with benefits' in the city. Learn a little more in the two sidebars, keeping chickens 101 and why to raise chickens.

I love sharing about our homestead. Along with an interview for the article, I had the pleasure of watching a professional search for the perfect chicken pictures.

First, photographer Jodi Miller came out with writer John Ross on a drizzling cold day. She shot for almost an hour. I posed with the chickens and baited them with stale corn chips to do their thing. My girls are so tame that they rarely gave Jodi the 'crazy' she was looking for.

A few days later, Jodi returned with a background and different lights. This time she had the idea to try to catch a hen in mid-flight.

Because the girls don't jump up unless surprised and it would be impossible to catch them doing so against the background, there was only one choice: drop them.

I held a hen a few feet off the ground and released on Jodi's count. She spotted the ground and flapped to a gentle landing. I don't think this counted as animal torture, as the hens jump farther to get out of their coop several times a day.

Sadly, none of the flapping chicken pics ended up in the Alive. It was reassuring, in a way, to watch a professional straining to capture the vision she had in her mind. I go through a similar struggle on a daily basis!

Mystery of the Missing Feathers

This is our chic Australorp hen, creatively named Austra. I like to call her the queen of the chickens and generally regard her as a bit more intelligent than the rest of the flock. She is the definitely the most responsive to our family's actions, coming and clucking gently when we call her.

I was naturally concerned when I noticed the tips of feathers missing on her right wing a few weeks ago. They were not removed down to the skin. It looked almost as though something took a bite out of the feathers.

Yesterday I saw that a whole half of her tail feathers were gone. Ack! I panicked a bit until I considered the shape - vaguely circular. A little like the shape of the ceramic heat bulb we turn on in their coop at night when it is very cold.

Inspecting the bulb revealed feathers burnt and stuck to it. Mystery solved. Apparently our 'smartest' chicken cuddled so close to the heat source that it singed off her feather tips. Thankfully she seems to be surviving the cold without them. We are moving the lamp so the bird-brained chickens can't de-feather themselves anymore.

PS. Notice the shadows in the picture? Today is our one alloted day of sunshine per fortnight in the Ohio winter! I'm soaking it in; I don't even care that my pictures look goofy because of the direct light!