Chickens and Candles, Candles and Chickens - December 8, 2021

Brody has been doing an awesome job making candles and brainstorming names for each of them. Friday nights have been designated to candle making, it seems, and the house fills with all sorts of different smells! He created a new favorite of "Chicken Fantastic" which is a cupcake scent with a few added sprinkles.

The chickens have been molting, which is a normal process chickens go through to shed old feathers and gain new. Brody wanted to show you on Sparkles. The colder weather is also a new experience and learning curve for us. Since chickens have a high internal temperature they are basically like little heaters with a down feather coat on, so there is no need to provide them with heat... but their combs and wattles can get frostbitten and keeping water from freezing is also something we are trying to navigate. To keep their combs and wattles from frostbite, we learned that sand in the coop will help absorb moisture, also having good ventilation is important to reduce moisture in the air from them breathing. So today Brody cleaned out their coop, placed fresh sand and woodchips, and used an organic lime powder (First Saturday Lime) that helps reduce odors and eliminates the chance of unwanted bugs.. It even provides them extra calcium which helps with harder egg shells.

They have been laying around 2-4 eggs a day- a big difference from what they were doing in August! Brody has been relying on his candle and mix sales to help afford the chicken food and other supplies - a big THANK YOU to all of those who have helped him. He has been able to keep up with the demand of his chickens and have enough for supplies to keep making the candles and mixes (very proud of him!).

For Christmas this year Brody chose a Chicken Coop Gingerbread House to make instead of the traditional house... of course!

That's all for now! Wishing you a Merry Christmas!