Thinning the Herd and Decluttering!

We have too much stuff.  I've been working on trying to declutter the house a bit and it is somewhat working.  I've got a box of things for Goodwill and have thrown out massive amounts of old papers that somehow just hang around in the house.  You never realize how many old bill envelopes are sitting around until you collect them- believe me.

My goal is to reduce the amount of junk just sitting around.  I have multiple copies of books, so I plan on keeping the nicest looking copy and donating the rest, or trying to resell them on amazon.com if they have any value.  I am trying my hardest not to hold back things for a yardsale- I don't have enough right now and I sure don't need to be storing junk to try to sell for a dime later on! It would be better just to donate it outright, I think.  This is what I say now, anyway.

I'm also "thinning down the herd".  This started on Saturday when I sold three rabbits, but is most noticeable in the chicken coop.

We had 13 chickens- 8 3 month old bantam cochins, 1 younger bantam cochin, 2 bantam cornish and 2 d'uccles.   They are all bantams, so it's less than you might think, but still- they are really going through the feed right now!

One of my favorite roosters, who is also the most useless genetically, was the mottled rooster pictured to the side.  He's beautiful, but I don't particularly want to use him to breed from because the the colors he would produce are not highly sought after.  Not that I am saying I will breed, but why keep the rooster in that case?  He also has been showing more aggressive tendencies lately, both towards the ladies and towards me.  His behavior is fine in a larger or less hands-on flock, but since my chickens are also pets, it's not ok here.  He is currently pending sale, along with the pair of d'uccles I mentioned earlier.  I wanted to keep the hen, but the best chance to sell the d'uccle rooster was as part of a pair.  Plus, they are not as friendly as the cochins are.  Now if I can just sell the bantam cornish and possible the blue bantam rooster, I'll be in good shape! That will cut the flock down almost to half, which will be cheaper and more rewarding from a pet-standpoint in the long run.

-Kristen