Category: 2011chicks

All out of chickens

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens4 Comments

Well, this has been a miserable week, going out and finding mutilated chickens every morning, and not having my favorite, Beautiful, clucking around under foot. I think the predator was sneaking into the coop while it was open during the day, bedding down under the nest boxes (there’s a hidden area under there) and then coming out at night to terrorize the chickens. It ate one of the little chicks right before we left for Memorial weekend, and left two dead in the coop for me to find. Then it ate the other two while we were gone. Then it seemed to take a break before coming back for the massacre the last few days.

Unfortunately, I am in no position to spend a bunch of money on materials to build a secure chicken coop. I couldn’t continue watching the monster pick the little guys off one by one. So I put out a call for help to the local chicken group, and people swooped in and took the chickens home. One lady took most of them – including the older hens who need a retirement home), a couple others went here and there. All nice homes, and I know the chickens are safe now. Hopefully the predator will move on once it realizes it’s food source is gone.

I’ll miss having chickens, but I wasn’t interested in finding any more of my little feathered buddies torn apart in the coop. After the last kill some of the chickens didn’t even want to go in the coop! But we got them put away and checked every corner with flashlights for any lurking predators, and then left them locked inside the secure coop until they left for their new homes. So that is the end of chickens for now…

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Another one down

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens1 Comment

I lost another pullet last night from my rapidly dwindling chicken flock. I locked the chickens up last night, and when I let them out this morning there was a bunch of feathers on the floor of the coop, and a depression in the bedding with one wing in it – ugh! One more pullet gone 😦 I don’t know what is going into the coop and eating an entire pullet at a time (they are pretty big), but I don’t want it hanging around and moving on to the dogs and cats. I’m considering getting rid of all the chickens. I don’t want to keep opening the doors to find one more chicken torn to pieces every morning!

Update:

And by evening we were one more down! At sunset the white chicken didn’t want to go into the coop. I got them all in and did a count:

7 chicks
3 buff hens
2 blue/gold hens
1 white hen

I came back later with a flashlight and found the missing chick dead in the coop, pulled back under the shelf behind the nest boxes. Dave helped me check all around and couldn’t find any critters lurking in the coop. We caught the chicks and put them in the big brooder box, since that will be more secure, and closed it all up. We’ll see if anyone else gets eaten before morning.

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Chicken count

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickensLeave a comment

Yesterday evening after Beautiful disappeared, one of the young chickens got out of the run area and the dogs chased and cornered it. I rescued it and it looked ok, but it was dead in the coop this morning 😦

I put an ad on CL to sell some of the extra chickens, and sold two adults, one buff and one blue/gold.

update: another lady showed up and bought two blue/gold hens and the baby rooster. Good day for selling chickens!

Current chicken count

9 March pullets
2 Blue/Gold Hens
3 Buff O Hens
1 Splash Hen

I think a coyote ate Beautiful :(

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens3 Comments

So this year I’ve lost all 8 of the chicks that Mama hen hatched, I think one of the pullets has disappeared, and today I found LOTS of feathers in the orchard, and the only hen we couldn’t account for was Beautiful, who’s usually clucking around under my feet 😦 Not a good year!

As of tonight I have:

11 March chicks (10 girls and a boy)
5 Blue/Gold Hens
4 Buff O Hens
1 Splash Hen

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Something killed a couple chicks :(

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks1 Comment

I went into the coop this afternoon to gather eggs and found two of the mama hen’s chicks dead in the coop. It looked like something had bit their necks. This was one of the gold ones, and Speckles 😦 The blue chick was nowhere to be found, so I guess whatever killed them carried him away. There are just two nervous gold chicks remaining. This is the worst luck ever. I started with eight, and I’m down to two! First time we’ve had any predation in the coop too. I’ve lost a few hens to the local hawks, but this was clearly something that went into the coop and attacked them while they were sleeping.

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Chicken update

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens3 Comments

The little baby chicks I got in March are all grown up – half size, to be exact. Here they are in the back behind two of the full grown chickens.

Here’s a couple of them roosting next to an adult hen. The chicks are very sweet, and I can pick them up without much fuss. They are going to be nice birds. I’m tempted to keep the whole group and have a nice flock of Buff O’s next year for selling hatching eggs out of. Maybe I could put that giant incubator to work.

I finally captured Mama Hen’s babies and put them in the brooder. She had completely abandoned them, and they weren’t even feathered out yet! They were all huddling together out in the yard, getting rained on, and I decided enough was enough! I want to see these little girls (I hope) grow up, I’m particularly curious to see what ‘Speckles’ looks like.

About two weeks ago a friend gave me back a hen I gave her last year as a chick.

The hen is a Splash Orpington. My friend and I bought ten chicks last year to split, and I ended up giving mine to her as well. She raised them, had some trouble with coyotes, gave away the roos, and ended up with just this one splash hen left! Since she was switching her flock over to dark egglayers, she gave this girl to me.

The first day she was here, I got a call from the neighbors asking if I had lost a chicken. ‘Maybe’, I said, ‘what’s it look like’. ‘It’s white’. ‘Yeah, I’ll be right over’. Apparently the other girls had run her off, and she’d gone looking for greener pastures.

This morning I heard the dogs barking, and went out to see what was up, and she had jumped out of the chicken yard again, and apparently the dogs had chased her all over and finally cornered her under a bush. When I got out there Jack was watching, Navi was running in circles, and Barclay was barking at the poor chicken from about 6 inches away trying to get her to run so he could chase her some more! Her tail feathers were scattered all over! While I was rounding up dogs (calmly, and telling them how good they were for not eating her), Navi ran up to her and sniffed at her and ran away again. I was glad to see nobody was actually trying to kill her! Finally I got the dogs put away and got the chicken back in the yard where she belonged. She’s lucky all she lost was her tail! She could have been doggie breakfast!

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Cold rainy spring day – with chickens

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens, mighty3 Comments

We had a beautiful day a couple days ago. We can sit around wistfully remembering the sun and the warmth, because now it’s all grey skies and rainstorms blowing through again! When is spring coming?! I spent a bit of time outside taking pictures of the chickens today, until the rain drove me (and the chickens) back indoors.

My ‘feed store’ chickies are off the heatlamp and have joined the rest of the flock. They can choose between hanging out in the shed or coming out to join the other birds, and they have been getting braver everyday about coming out.

The hens don’t seem to mind them at all, despite the difference in size. I haven’t seen anyone getting bullied.

Such a pretty bunch of birds!
Mama hen takes her six remaining chickies out on adventures in the tall grass of the chicken run.
Life is a big adventure for these guys
Mama points out a piece of squash!
Then she does a little digging…
And the chicks look for any goodies she may have kicked up.
When a breeze picks up and the rain starts sprinkling, Mam hen fluffs up and calls her chicks under her.
Like little kids, they can’t sit still, one pops out, then goes back under…
Then a different one peeks out
I guess it’s kind of crowded with six chicks under there.
When the rain really starts coming down, the whole flock heads for the coop. But hey, what’s that in the middle…
It’s orange, but it’s not a chicken!
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Gardening, and a chicken update

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, garden2 Comments

 Yesterday I worked in the garden. I was glad I prepped it earlier in the year so it was ready to plant. I got seedlings this year so I wouldn’t have to start anything from seed. I planted lettuce, kale, broccoli-rabe, bok-choi, leeks, parsley, pickling cukes, and dill. I also planted spinach but I started with seeds. It’s a special variety I was given by a local farmer. I also put in 100 onion bulbs and planted a little rosemary bush in a large pot. I still want to pick up some rainbow chard, thyme, and several basil plants. Last year I only had one basil and that wasn’t nearly enough – at the end of the season there was none left to dry and use over the winter!

In the chicken world, I lost all power to the shed, so hopefully the older chicks will be fine tonight without heat. They haven’t been sleeping under the heat lamp lately anyway, so I hope they are all able to snuggle together to stay warm tonight.

And as for Mama Hen: she is losing chicks right and left! Yesterday I found one dead by the chicken run gate. I assume it fell in the water bowl because it was very wet. I don’t know if it got out but was chilled and died, or if it drowned and another chicken pulled it out of the water to see if it was good to eat. Anyway, that leaves her with six. She would be down to 5 if I hadn’t rescued the one on the woodpile the other morning. I hate to say it, but she’s the worst mama hen I’ve had so far! I dumped out the water bowl to prevent any further accidents and left them with a very shallow bowl nobody should be able to drown in!

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Lost chick!

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks2 Comments

My best adventure always seem to happen when there’s no time to grab a camera!

Yesterday was such a pretty day that all the chicks were out in the chicken run. Mama took her 7 chickies out, and I took my brooder chicks and stuffed them out the coop door one by one to show them how to get out too. It was a beautiful warm sunny day, and everyone seemed to be having fun exploring.

When I came home from Dog School in the evening, Mama had already taken her chicks back into the coop for the night and had them snuggled up under her, because it was getting cold. I counted the older chicks and found a few missing, so I went and found them and showed them how to go back inside the coop so they could sleep under the heat lamp. When I was done I had all 12 chicks back in the brooder box, and Mama had her chicks under her. At least I assumed she had all her chicks under her!

This morning I let the dogs out and heard a loud PEEP PEEP PEEP that sounded like a lost chick. I put the dogs back in and checked the run – no chick there. I checked the coop – Mama was still snuggling her chickies under her. I counted my brooder chicks again – they were all there. So I walked around to the ‘backyard’ side of the chicken shed – and there, in the morning sunlight, sitting on the woodpile, was a little yellow chickie! It was one of Mama’s chicks!

I tried to  catch it, but it skittered away into the woodpile, which is covered by blackberry vines, and I couldn’t see how I could get it, plus I was getting snagged right and left. So I went and got my heavy gloves and long handled pruning shears, and started clipping away the blackberry vines. Meanwhile the chickie climbed down into the woodpile and got herself hung up between the wall of the shed and a log. I cut back enough blackberry vines to reach her and took off one glove, and used the other gloved hand to pull back the vines and snatched her up before she could get away again!

I took her into the coop and mama had her chicks up and scratching around, and as soon as she heard the chickie peeping she fluffed up and held out her wings and came running towards me! I set the chick on the ground and it ran over to catch up with it’s brothers & sisters, and Mama ran back to them, strutting around and scratching. I told her not to blame me – she’d better learn to count!

Looking into the chicken run I can see where if a clumsy chick slipped off the ramp on the way into the coop they could fall into a crack between the shed and the skirting around the bottom and end up under the coop with no way to get back into the chicken run. Then the only way out would be to travel under the shed and come out on the other side, by the woodpile. So I took some wood over there and blocked the hole so a chick can’t fall in it again. Hopefully they’ll all make it into the coop tonight. I can’t believe that little fluffybutt survived a whole evening outside in the cold by herself!

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Chicken update

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens2 Comments

I let Mama Hen take her chickies out into the chicken yard and spend the day showing them how to scratch in the grass, and by the end of the day she was down a chick! No idea what happened to it. So I caught her and put her in a dog crate and moved her and her chicks back into the coop for a while longer.

I also put my two young roosters on CL and within 10 minutes I had someone coming to pick them up – now that’s quick! I figured it was better than feeding them for months and then giving them away! From now on I’m giving roosters away as soon as I am sure they are roosters!

Beautiful, my big friendly Buff hen, has had some feathers out of place for a week or so. I posted a picture of her a couple days ago looking out the coop door, and you can see her feathers on her thighs are fluffier on one side than the other. I picked her up to look at it a few days ago but couldn’t see what was going on – she’s very fluffy. Today I picked her up and just happened to get the right angle, and it looks like a big flap of skin on her side has been peeled back and is just hanging there with the feathers on it! Nothing looks goopy or infected, the exposed muscle looks dry and hard, the flappy skin looks dry, and her attitude seems to be fine, she’s hanging out and eating and acting normal. Will the flappy skin just fall off on it’s own, or do I need to get involved somehow? I asked my chicken friends and they seemed to think that if it didn’t look sore and infected, I should just leave it alone. She doesn’t seem to be suffering, she’s happy as usual, following me around. I hope this all turns out ok, she’s my favorite in the group.

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