6. Roost, soap, snakes

Hello, again, I am just combining our questions
this is so fun
love you

1. Your mom mentioned to me that when you started getting chickens that you did not even know what a roost was.  What is a roost? What does it mean when people say chickens come home to roost? A roost is a perch or bars that a chicken sleeps on. Our grandpa (Poppa) made ours. It's a bunch of bars with chicken wire lining it so their feet won't fall through but poop will, since they poop while they sleep. I guess when chickens come home to the roost it's like saying they came home or to bed.

2. You made soap before from the goats’ milk and gave us some.  It was wonderful.  How do you make soap?  We buy ours obviously but is it something that is hard to do? It's pretty tough and takes a while, especially since after making it on the stove and putting it into molds, it has to sit for about 3 weeks. It's also kind of dangerous because it takes an entire can of lye, which as you know burns just to touch. I actually messed mine up(I was trying to follow a recipe from a goat book). I'm glad though, because now it's my special recipe. I am planning on making more soon. I just have to wait for the guy we'll buy milk from to figure out his prices. I'm excited!

3. Are chickens afraid of snakes? In the cartoons they are always going after worms, is that an inherited trait or a learned trait? Actually no, they're not afraid of snakes, or at least ours aren't. I once ran up to their pen and then realized a huge bull snake was right next to me(like 6 inches away). Now bull snakes are very agressive. Luckily, I was on a rock so it didn't see me, but I was so worried for the chickens it was slithering to. However, you can imagine my surprise when the snake that was about 3 feet long, poked it's head through the fence only to be attacked by the chickens! At first they didn't know what to do, but then they just started pecking it all over. That snake learned his lesson and quickily slid away.

On the other hand, snakes will eat chicks and eggs. We found 2 in one day attempting to get to our chickies(that was lat year). One had climbed up a tree and was trying to get in the window.

Eating worms is mostly an instict. Chicks from the begginning know to peck at interesting things and ones raised by their mom will peck anything she does. They then learn that worms are yummy. So it's half instict half learned.

P.S. I didn't look any of these up, but just know this from experience.

I'm loving this blog!
kk