es, maybe a pet store

It’s drizzling today and it is expected to change to snow this evening, although we are supposed to get less than 3 inches over the next 2 days.  I don’t remember another winter when we have had so much mild weather and so little snow.  The hose ran this morning to the pasture and barn.  That’s quite remarkable in January and it’s very nice not to have to carry water.  We are going to get some cold weather in the next few days but I hope the water stored in the barn will get me through to the next thaw.

 I have two frizzle hens sitting on a nest of eggs together.  The eggs are supposed to hatch today so we will see if I have chicks in January.  That will be another first for me although I know some people plan on eggs hatching in incubators on Jan. 1.    I am going to let the hens raise the chicks if they hatch.

 I brought a pot in from outside last week that had chickweed growing in it.  The canaries loved the chickweed.  I left the pot on the back porch, it’s unheated but sunny and the chickweed and some violas- which are also edible- are growing like crazy.  I was actually able to pull big clumps of chickweed for my coop birds from my perennial beds on Tuesday which they loved.  Chickweed is stuffed with nutrition for birds.

 I am shopping for new canary breeding cages.  I want to start breeding them by about February if they are ready.   Being able to breed them inside makes me more inclined to wait on breeding the outside birds until the weather is better.  (Although it’s really hard when the weather has been so nice.) 

 The canary cages I have are made of welded wire which is ok but the doors are large and open to the sides and birds can get by me sometimes, especially if I am trying to catch them for moving to a new cage.  I want cages with slide up doors and removable dividers and trays on the bottom.  My current cages have welded wire floors and you put newspaper under them.  The floors need to be brushed- scraped every week or so and that disturbs the birds.  So I am cage shopping.

 I don’t like shopping of any kind.  I thought internet shopping would be easier to me but I am confronted with too many choices and questions that a picture and brief description can’t answer.   I like small stores but they have small choices and large prices generally.  Pet stores used to be common everywhere but in this area anyway there are none any more.  Even the larger cities have few pet stores.   That’s odd because people love their pets and spend lots of money on them.   I don’t know if a few big box pet stores have just captured the market or people are mail ordering pet stuff.

 My husband and I were going to open a pet store down in the city once.  We looked at locations even.  We decided against it because there were so many established pet stores in existence.   I’m thinking that was a wise decision now.  But if I had the money I think a pet store with poultry supplies might be nice.