A Little Love Nest

We have an escapee, she's figured out how to hop the enclosure and spend the majority of her day out pecking grass instead of marching around in the muddy coop. I let Ivy back in occasionally if she seems to want to return, but for the most part she seems to enjoy her independence and frankly, if she's smart enough to get herself out she deserves a little alone time. It hadn't really been a problem until I noticed she hadn't layed her usual daily seafoamy green egg in a few days. Then one morning after Ella slogged through our muddy backyard to feed the gals I noticed Ivy feverishly pacing the fence, then she got her whits about her, hopped onto the perch, flapped to the top of the fence, awkwardly fluttered to the ground and made a beeline to a patch of dirt that stays pretty dry up against the house. I was so curious, and suspecting to find a few eggs in her new little secret spot among the trowels, rakes and pitchforks leaning up against the house providing her a decent amount of protection. E and I peeked from my bedroom window that is situated exactly above her special little spot (with a bird's eye view) and sure enough she had made a little love nest in the dirt with 2 beautiful seafoamy blue-green eggs.

...and all was right with the world.

Our Petunia wants to be a mom. Every 2 months on the dot she starts showing signs of indisputable mommy-ness.  She sits in the egg box all day and night, to the great irritation of the other gals she commandeers their eggs, and all in the name of hatching babies. Each time I notice we're back in 'broody world', I set up the dog crate in the garage and break her of it.  It works, it's fine, I just can't help but wonder what would happen if we did give her a few fertile eggs to set on?

I did it.

I picked up 5 eggs from Jen, who's allowed to have roosters intermingling with her gals. I set up a private little apartment with her own food and water and nesting box and let her settle in. She immediately strode over, cocked her head this way and that eyeing those gorgeous eggs, gobbled up a large amount of food (broody hens rarely feed themselves), took a dust bath, rearranged the eggs, fluffed her feathers and slowly lowered her warm body right down. That was yesterday, and she hasn't moved! We're hoping to have chicks in 3 weeks (which coincidentally lands right on my birthday)! All the other gals are very curious about why she's getting the special treatment, it's quite hilarious to watch them circle her apartment, not sure how to get in. We gave 'em some extra clean straw so they wouldn't feel left out.

Chicken Prison

I've mentioned before that the gals just haven't been getting along. They're catty yes, but I think I was trying to make them all live in a smaller space than they deserved. Our original coop was built with the idea that we'd only ever have 3 chickens, and since then we've added 3 more birds, and a little more room...but in retrospect not enough. I was frequently jolted awake by squawking in the early hours of the morning to free them. I have even considered giving one or two of the trouble makers away to make my life easier, but then we wouldn't be getting 1/2 a dozen eggs a day, and I've gotten used to that. Thankfully D easily saw my predicament and took an entire day off, rented some equipment, bought the necessary supplies in order to build what he now affectionately calls "Chicken Prison." I love him for this new addition. Its walls are high enough (over 7 feet) so that those nit-whits cannot fly over, and the fence itself is not ugly, I think it looks a little like a zoo exhibit, myself. I love going out and collecting eggs and feeding them now, they're even letting me sleep in!

N watched his dad from the play structure

the gals were freaked by the noise

large post holes next to old fence

the digger

posts in

cross beams on

door together

Ivy hiding

helping

adding the chicken wire

the inmates

finished product

The Perfect Morning

5am, Even though the sun isn't up it's comfortably warm already when I let the chickens out, the birds are singing
5:05am Snuggling back in bed with E
7:15am The sun is up and streaming through the windows, N wanders in asking for his banana
7:20am Turning on the sprinklers to water the garden
7:25am Feeding Molly, shuffling around the kitchen and drinking coffee, opening windows and the sliding glass door
8:00 E wanders down the hall, breakfast then strait outside
8:45 hanging laundry on the line

The rest of my day should look a lot like:

Eat popsicles we poured last night, drink iced tea I steeped last night, tearing off the rest of the carpet on the stairs, work in the garden and a nap...more like a perfect day.

Breaking a Broody

Petunia would make a great mama, she would. Buuuuut, we don't have a rooster and her eggs (and those that she's commandeered from her flock mates) will not hatch, no matter how long she sits there...and she's been sitting there for a few days now. Her breed is known for 'going broody,' in other words, periodically they have a strong instinctual drive to raise a brood o'chicks. My first clue that she was in the zone was when she decided to spend the night in the egg laying box instead of roosting with the other gals. And then she pretty much has stayed there except when Azalea or Marigold come up to lay their eggs, then they'd shoo her out, she'd pace back and forth waiting for them to deposit an egg right next to hers and then scramble back on in to sit on the batch. Poor thing. She had even plucked her feathers from her undersides to incubate those pathetic unfertilized eggs. I brought her a personal dish of water and food for her to replenish her energy. She wasn't looking any worse for wear, but it has happened that a hen becomes so broody she literally dies waiting to receive her babies that are never coming.

So I decided to make every one's life easier and put her in the broody breaker. Basically a wire dog crate up on saw horses in the garage with no bedding. I took her a few days to snap out of it, but she eventually stopped screaming at me and angrily puffing out her feathers whenever I came near and now she's back to normal and hopefully will start laying her daily egg once again. Had I known she was likely to head in that direction I would have waited on getting our new chickies earlier in the spring and just gotten a few fertilized eggs, how fun would that've been watching little chickers scrambling after their mama! Maybe next year.

The Underbelly of the Chicken World

* I try and keep this blog as PG as possible, so I will not post photo's here of events that transpired, but a word of caution...there is descriptive carnage in following post.

I awoke with a start this morning.  There was some gruesome sounding squawking going on in the coop. There I found one of our 2-month-old-babies (Daisy, the Buff Orpington) with it's head in a hole (not unlike an ostrich) breathing deeply but otherwise not moving. My heart sank, I gently lifted her to my chest and quickly saw that the feathers and skin had been pulled back from her neck. She was horrifically mauled by her own kind. The older ones have been pushing the younger ones around some, but they must have cornered her and really went for it. Things were pretty heated a few weeks ago, but I was under the impression that they had worked things out. Thankfully I have my most knowledgeable chicken friend on speed dial and frantically woke her from her sleep shortly after 7am. She confirmed that I should separate her from all others, gently clean wound, medicate with Neosporen and let her rest in the quiet garage with the heat lamp.
Daisy has been eating, drinking, pooping, and chirping so I think she'll make it, but oh, I do not want to go through that again. I will take more precautions next round of chicks, and have already altered the coop so I can manage the two flocks easier. We were all pretty shaken, but it's a bit of a reality check; they are animals, they have instinct and no amount of anthropomorphising on our part changes them.

Garden Happy

Today was the day. Got together my seeds (thanks Jenn Hall), my accumulated toilet paper rolls (thanks Erica), soil, my dog and girl and set to work! IT was magic. All of us sitting in the sun, the chickens pecking around, and my hands in the dirt.

seeds!

filling tubes

everything organized

Even weeds are cheerful sometimes

Moll's

Bathtime

No, you don't usually need to bathe your chicks.  But this one in particular is having some 'elimination issues,' shall we say?  I've tried all sorts of methods for clearing this little behind problem of hers, and this has just worked the best:

1. Fill a bowl with fairly warm water
2. Gently dunk bottom half of birdie in, rest there for a while (the chick will love it, seriously she'll let out contented little peeps intermittently)
3. Take chickie out, gently dab bum with paper towel (she may not like this)
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until all droppings are gone.
5. Gently wrap chick in clean paper towel and hold for a few minutes (she'll love this too, it's like swaddling a baby; emulating the womb, or in this case shell).
6. Once she's not dripping wet, immediately place under heat lamp to dry completely.
7. She'll soon start preening to get her fuzzy feathers back in order and pecking around
8. Watch for pasting up in following days, when it happens once it's likely going to reoccur before she grows out of it.

Welcome Home!

I simply could not resist putting the new girls into our dollhouse this morning. It's probably because E and I just finished reading the greatest book, but we set up their brooder in our living room when we brought them home yesterday, and the dollhouse was just sitting there aching to be explored this morning. I may try and pop them in there in a week or so to gauge how much they're growing. Our most prominently featured gal has been prematurely named Clover as she is decidedly E's favorite (clearly the prettiest) and the name is leading in the polls by quite a substantial margin. The yellower of the two others is a Buff Orpington and has affectionately been named Daisy to go with our flora names. N has taken quite a fancy to her, so that leaves the white fuzzy unnamed sweetie all to myself!

Never Give Up!

From the very start of my infatuation with chickens, I knew I wanted Wyandottes. Their plump physical appearance, their feathering and general disposition (good mama's) made the variety a first pick. A few drawbacks are that they are notoriously late layers, and when they finally do lay some are so broody (wanting to raise a brood) they'll sit and sit on unfertilized eggs and in some cases die because those eggs will never hatch.
Both Azalea and Marigold have been layin' eggs like champions, but ol' Petunia hadn't even seemed interested. Until yesterday when I noticed she squatted down when one of the other birds approached...hmmmm. Then this morning she wasn't out in the run with the others, when I peeked in the hen house, there she was; sitting in the nesting box! Hurrah! It's a wonder to me that their instinct is so strong; they just know what to do.  Go Tunes!

Chicken Snow

Bawk-Bawk Buh-KAK!

We got our first egg this morning!   It's so tiny and cute, I don't know if I could eat it (see the comparison in the egg carton)!  We think it came from Azelea, our Black Star.  E has daily chicken duty, and she was just beaming when she found it in our make-shift egg box laying next the the 'trainer egg,' a golf ball.  When she brought it up to the house, I actually screamed!

All in a Day

The weather has finally shifted into summer.  Both yesterday and today we've spent the majority of our time in and around the backyard & garden:

An Unexpected Visit

Those kooky gals of mine fumbled up our 10 steps to come pay me a visit on our deck this afternoon.  They sun bathed for a bit, then wandered around finding various interesting bits, and then just as quickly as they appeared they tottled down leaving a few presents behind...