...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.

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.

Roomies

So our once, little fuzzballs are all feathered out and living outdoors...finally! The problem is that in typical fashion the older gals are going after them like sharks! Until the new 2-month-old ones get old enough to hold their own, I have to separate them for most of their waking hours. It's not that big of a problem because I need a bit of weeding done, and the 11-month-old girlies more than happy to take care of it! Really once they've laid their egg, they're much less cranky, but I've expanded the coop outdoor area to give the young ones some space to hide and the older ones some respite from their incessant and obsessive peeping when they all are in there together.

4-H

E joined 4-H today! A new group has just formed and we're taking advantage of it! E will be working on showing poultry. It was a crack up to see all these city-farm girlies with their hens and rabbits today. We all me at the leaders home in the Wallingford District, received instructions on how to show chickens, what judges will look for, and what judging is like. It was so fun!

Here is E with our Blue Laced Wyandotte, Petunia (iPhone pic's sorry).

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

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...

Pullets

Pullet = teenage chicken; not a chick any longer & not a hen yet.

Our gals are big, cannot believe they grew so quickly, and are going to get even b-i-g-g-e-r. The coop isn't quite done yet, so after hanging out in the backyard all day we still bring them in at night. They love wandering around outside their run when we're out there. They flutter around in a tight group gobbling up grass and clover, and any little bugs or worms they find. I still have to keep an eye on E because she just wants to cuddle with them, like a puppy.  I even caught her taking Marigold down the slide on her lap a few weeks ago.  They are for the most part terrified of her, and have, what I believe, come up with a pretty ingenious strategy for keeping her away; they hang out in the rose bushes.  This also works well when they want to avoid coming in at night and we have to lure them with empty meal worm containers.  Petunia is now regularly clucking, while the other two still peep. All 3 have yet to grow their combs and waddles...still pretty sure we have no roosters on the premises.

Monroe

E has croup, again.  We took it easy for the first half of the day, but I think we were all needing to get out of the house on this very wet and dark afternoon for a little field trip. Being outside in the moist air is really beneficial for E's tight air pipe.

I have mentioned the feed store in Monroe where we got Petunia, it's a great family run place that has the largest selection of chicks I ever dreamed of (ducklings, turkeys, and guinea fowl too).  E was in heaven.  She moved slowly from bin to bin exclaiming how cute they all were and picking up the little fluff balls to get her little fuzzy fix.  We were pretty much the only visitors so we stayed for a good 1/2 hour or so.

I was in the middle of a relatively lengthy conversation about waterers and feeders with the clerk when I felt a tug at my jacket and heard an obvious concern welling up in E's raspy little voice. "Mommy!  I need to show you something!"  This wasn't giddy excitement, she was worried.  I excused myself from the conversation and she led me to the bin of chicks that she had been fawning over and pointed to a quiet little peep, "That one is pasted up!"

Alright, poultry talk:  *Pasting up : "a condition in which their droppings cake up and block their vent opening, preventing them from passing any more droppings."  It is deadly if not dealt with promptly, and E knows this.  She is visually terrified.  Alright, this is tricky.  This store obviously deals with chicks a lot, they're a probably a dime a dozen, each one isn't too valuable (some of these are being sold for the table anyhow, very few I imagine will have a long drawn out life the way our backyard flock will, our pets).  God knows I do not want to tell someone how to run their business...conflict is not a strong suit for me.  Do I take care of the sick chick myself, do I lie and tell E that someone who works there will take care of it...do I get involved?  I chose the latter; to ask for help on behalf of the sick bird and my wide-eyed girl.  My daughter needed to see action.  I walked back to the young clerk I had been talking to and quietly asked if they cared whether or not we had spotted a pasted-up chick?  She affirmed that they did and asked E to show her which one it was.  She scooped it up, cleaned it's fuzzy little bum, and was able to relieve that little body of some serious built up droppings.  I'll admit it wasn't a pretty site, but when she set that chick back down and it quickly scurried away and into the flock, I felt a huge sense of relief, we had made the right choice.  Who knows, it may die tomorrow but my daughter was able to experience a sense of justice for one of God's smallest creatures and that kind of empathy is something you cannot really know without experience.  I was so proud of her, and I told her so.  We talked about how perhaps that very chick may be a pet that will make someone happy for a long time, and how maybe someone had helped one of our girls in their first week of life.  It was a very sweet car ride home, and I was so happy we had made the trip.

*Definition provided by the good people at My Pet Chicken.

At One Week

***Disclaimer:  I realize that nearly all posts this week have been poultry related, we are excited and I know that many of you very well may not be, so just to let you know I am aware of the situation and will be working on evening things out in the upcoming weeks.***

We've owned our chicks for about 1 week now and I would like to officially introduce to you; Marigold.  She seems like the oldest of the bunch, certainly the largest and was the first to spread her pretty wings and flutter around.  My guess is that she's at the top of the pecking order.  She's extremely alert and almost has a sixth sense for meal worm snack time!  My favorite quality about her is that she loves to stretch.  I didn't know chickens stretched, but she does...a lot.  She'll slowly reach one foot behind her and simultaneously fully extends the wing on the same side, for a drawn out r-e-a-c-h.  Here's our little redhead:

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Well, there has to be one in every crowd, right?  Azalea is proving to be it.  Quick, a little bit runty but feisty, and doesn't necessarily want to be held.  She'll steal food, and is slightly advanced in her skill building.  She was the first to catch on to resting on a perch; roosting.  E and I spent a few minutes showing the girls what it's all about (did you know that chickens sleep balancing on a branch or the like?)  Zalie grabbed right on with both feet and I'll often find her practicing on her own when I pop down for a visit.  She's hard to grab a shot of because she's fast and entirely black save her tummy & fuzzy little butt (with the cutest tail feather in history) and she's a bit suspicious and skittish around the camera.

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And finally Petunia.  D nicknamed her 'little Tania.'  She's sweet, mellow but social, and loves to be held.  She also has the prettiest markings, Cleopatra eyes and is my current favorite.  When we first brought her home she seemed like a friendly little puppy that just wanted to play with the others.  When we initially offered her a meal worm she just looked at it and walked away...but after watching the other two fight over them, she's in the game.  In fact I think she has a pretty good strategy;  she'll wait until one of the other girls (Marigold) snatches up the first worm, then Azalea inevitably will chase "the early bird who got the worm," and then Petunia will wait for the second available...smart little gal.

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It really is so crazy to think ahead by a few months and wonder what they will have transformed into by then:

When fully grown our Goldie will look something like this:

Scrappy little Azelea, like this:

And our sweetheart Petunia like this:

*Hen pic's from the internet.

Seriously.

If you are even remotely interested in seeing our girls in their downy cuteness; hurry up!  They are getting bigger daily and all of them already have their wings feathered out.  From here we enter into the "awkward teenage boy" phase before filling out into their regal hen-ness, so flutter on over to coo over the little darlings.

*We took them out on the lawn in the sunshine today for the first time.  I corralled them in a bottomless cardboard box.  The gals loved poking around in the grass, finding bugs and such.  Petunia took advantage of a small gap and squeezed through.  Once on the other side she just stood there cocking her head this way and that very proud of herself, until I scooped her up and placed her back in confinement.  We've always kinda secretly mocked her because she hasn't seemed like the sharpest bird brain among them, so today's little escape act may be changing her standings.

Petunia

I just could not wait to bring Petunia home.  I fell in love with this girl's breed the minute I layed (ha-ha) eyes on it.  Beautiful (for a chicken).  N and I went over to Monroe Farm & Feed this afternoon and I was astounded at how many little peepers they had on hand, and ducklings too!  My stars, it was fun looking at all of them.  I was glad I had decided which variety I was going to take home, otherwise I would have been there for hours!  I noticed her right away, she was scratching around for food with the older pullets (teenager chick's) and her spunkiness impressed me.  I scooped her up, and she peeped all the way home, and really hasn't stopped.  She's exhibited energy the other two certainly did not upon arrival.  I could almost see their eye's roll when I placed her among her new brood.  She ran right up to Zalie (Azalea), and Goldie (Marigold) and they immediately turned their beaks up at her and pushed into a corner with their little tail feathers staring her down.  And I think I heard one of them snigger and whisper "OMG, who is that?"  I had to have a little talk with them about their little 'chick-clique,' and I think things have settled down.  Just a minute ago I went down to check on them (as I do like every 3 minutes or so) and they were all heaped in a little downy pile with their eyes closed dreaming of meal worms...only maybe not Tunie (Petunia) D thinks she's a vegetarian.