Saturday, December 1, 2012

Great Day!

Today was a beautiful day!  You could never have guessed that it was the last day of November.  The chickens and dog enjoyed one of the last shiver free days of the year together.  Freckles has trained very well.  We are so pleased with her.  She has proven herself trustworthy with the chickens!  We can leave her out in the yard with the birds and not only does she not eat them, she barks and rounds them up in the coop if the neighbors dogs come sniffing around the fence or she sees people other than us coming.  Besides working independently she is a great partner for any one of us.  When we let the birds out to free range they are sometimes hard to get back in the run.  Well not with Freckles on hand!  We give a few claps and give her the call and she can get those birds in the run in less than a minute.  The new birds are still giving her a hard time but I think that's because THEY aren't trained.  Rather than heading for the door when the dog comes around them they all scatter like an explosion.  It's something we are working on and by spring I am confident we won't have any issues with any of our current birds.  Here are a few pics of Freckles and her charges.  The group behind her is the group that is still giving her a hard time.  It's the Ugly Duckling (the big brown one) who is the worst!