Chickens and Garden

On Friday, I received a call from the woman I get my chickens from. She needed to find a home for one of her girls. She had a pen that was attacked by a dog and had spent around $100 to save this chicken's life. This chicken had just had stitches taken out and needed to go back outside. Here's the kicker... she was given a very strong antibiotic (Baytril)* and now her eggs cannot be eaten. Ever. My friend sells eggs, so that would not work. This chicken lays white eggs, all of mine will lay brown. So, I drove over and picked up that chicken and another.
This is Thea - She is a 2 1/2 year old Appenzeller. She is missing tail and back feathers from the dog attack, but they will grow back.

And this is Sutton. She is a 13 week old Speckled Sussex. She is the same age as Sprinkles, the Barred Rock, but quite a bit smaller. Sutton gets chased quite a bit and hangs out in the coop most of the day. I lock her in a crate overnight in the coop because I don't want her to get cornered and attacked. Hopefully I won't have to do that much longer. She's very sweet!

The Girls: Ruby, Sprinkles, Thea, Sutton

The garden is doing well. We are apparently having a drought though and things just need to grow... I added 5 bags of cocoa shell mulch to the vegetable plot last week. It is literally cocoa shells. It can be tilled into the garden at the end of the season. It smells like dark chocolate when it gets wet! And it's pretty.

I am considering going to get more bags and doing the 3 Sisters plot too. I don't have current pics of that plot, but the pole beans are coming up. I desperately need to weed though!

* Some people say that there is a withdrawal period for Baytril. However, it is banned in the US for meat and egg production birds because it's possible that it may cause resistance to human antibiotics. I cannot take that risk for myself or my family. She has not laid since the attack. If she does start laying again, her eggs will be discarded.