Devonviolet Acres

Ridgetop said:
At least it wasn't a rattlesnake! Heard about a fellow rabbit breeder that went out at night to feed her rabbits. She flipped on the light and there was a huge rattler hanging from the rafters over the cages! She departed quickly and came back with a shovel.
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Rattlers and Diamond Backs are something that we haven’t seen here. Although, when I lived in Lake Worth, one time I saw a HUGE Diamond Back crawling, diagonally, across an intersection. We DO have Black Widows and DH saw a Brown Recluse spider in the feed shed once.

Brown recluse spiders like to hide in small dark places. That is another really good reason to check your shoes, before putting them on, if you live in the Midwest or Southeastern part of the country.
 
DG found a couple of black widows in webs on the porch between the wall and our deck chairs when bringing them inside to store before returning to CA. Luckily, we had not been sitting in them for a couple days! Usually, we take our morning coffee onto the back porch to watch the barn swallows. We will have to start moving those chairs every time we go out there and keep a brush on the porch to remove webs.
 
Well, more excitement on Devonviolet Acres. DH went out to feed the animals and noticed that Violet was really interested in some thing outside the fence, but there was a chicken there chasing her away.

So DH took a closer look and saw two little brand new baby chicks running around, with two eggs and two newly opened shells, in a nest right outside the fence. He tried to catch them but couldn’t, so he came in the house and got me.

So out I go in my pajamas. :D I did stop long enough to take my glasses off and put a sweat band on because at 65% humidity. I knew I would be sweating rivers down my face! It turned out my whole body was soaked. I had to change my pajamas when I came in the house.

It didn’t take long to catch the chicks, but mama hen I was another story. She was all over the place. We finally managed to chase her into the chicken run. I put the chicks in a corner nest inside the coop and we put mama in there. But then within a few minutes, she had them out in the run and one of them got through the chicken wire, and into the goat yard. So I had to go catch it and bring it back.

On to plan B - DH went in the barn, and got a dog carrier with plastic mesh around the bottom, so the chicks can’t get out. Then he got a bucket of wood chips (for the floor of the cage) and a water dish and had to go catch mama again. We put the chicks, the remaining two eggs, and the water dish in the dog carrier, and then put mama in with them. She was really happy to see her babies again. Now the carrier is in the corner of the chicken coop. In the morning we will probably have to double up on the chicken wire In the run.

Oh, before I started looking for the chicks, I was helping DH get the chickens into the run. several of the chickens and guineas ran around behind the runs in the back of the chicken coop. I started going back to chase them out (like I have done many times in the past). As I came around the corner, I just happened to look up and let out a blood curdling scream!!! 😱 I almost walked right into a 2” spider in a web, smack dab in the middle of the 4 foot wide walkway!!! I think it was what we call a Banana Spider (a big yellow spider that originally came to the US on the banana boats). I must have come within six inches of running into it, right at face level! :ep DH ran and got a stick so he could knock down the web. I let HIM go get the errant chickens. :lol:
 
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