Category: chickens

Chicks and Mama hen

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, chicken tractor, chickens2 Comments

Mama hen and chickies are doing great. She takes them out and shows them how to scratch around for bugs, then when they get cold they snuggle under her with just a head sticking out here and there. They look so cozy!

It’s funny how hens lay their eggs and never give them a second thought until something clicks with them to go broody. Then they will set those eggs until they hatch, and raise their chicks with great devotion, fluffing up to scare off predators, until the chicks are big enough to look after themselves. Then they kind of forget about them and go back to doing their own thing again. It’s the chicken circle of life 🙂

Mama hen has four – no, SIX little chicks

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, chickens2 Comments

There were six eggs, but so far we’ve only seen four chicks. I didn’t want to bother her. Have you ever seen a look that said more clearly ‘bug off’?! I’ll leave her alone. It’s so fun to see how devoted broody hens are to the idea of hatching those eggs, and their reward is having a little brood of chicks to take care of. It’s one of my very favorite things 🙂

Look at those little fluffy-kins! They are all Big Blue’s babys. Now we’ll see what happens when you mix a blue cochin with buff orpingtons, white cochin, or whatever the heck that black hen is.

Update – Momma took them out of the nest this morning and there were SIX little fluffybutts following her – three grey and three black!

Chicks go exploring

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, barclay, chickens, mighty3 Comments

This morning I took the front off the brooder box and let the chicks out to play.

Grass! Under my feet! What’s a bird to do?!

Since I’m going to keep some of these chicks, I decided to go ahead and introduce them to the rest of the flock by letting everyone out into the backyard, which is not anybody’s territory, so they could meet on even ground. It seems to have worked great.

Big chickens and little chickens, all pecking around and hunting for scratch. I didn’t see anyone getting picked on. The chicks stayed close to their shed while the adults wandered farther out into the back yard looking for bugs.

The cat was on guard for a while, but then she fell asleep. The rooster is not impressed with her work ethic!

Soon the dogs were sunbathing too, soaking up the warm sun 🙂

And the cat had to move to a shadier spot.

Just a beautiful day. One of those that makes me so happy to live in the country.

The backyard flock

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens1 Comment

Just a few of the girls (and Big Blue) in the backyard flock.
This hen is my only remaining ‘game hen’ mix I got from Martha. One of my original five chickens. I gave her sisters away one by one because they refused to stay in the pen and were causing headaches for me, getting chased by the dogs and hiding eggs. She’s pretty good, though I’ve seen her out a few times lately. She raised a bunch of chicks last year, so I figure I’ll put up with her. I’m hoping she goes broody again this year.
This is one of the chicks she raised. Obviously not from one of her own eggs! This girl is all Buff Orpington. Very pretty! I have a soft spot for fat, gold chickens!
Big Blue is just pretty darned impressive!
He stands about 2 ft tall! I’m glad he has continued to be very polite about his rooster duties and has not caused me any trouble. He’s so pretty I just love looking at him, I’d hate to have to send him packing!

More chix pix

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, chickens3 Comments

Three weeks old and doing fine. Everyone is starting to get feathers, and they look terribly ratty while the feathers are coming in. Once they are feathered they’ll be ready to start venturing outdoors.

If it’s gold and doesn’t have feathers on it’s feet, it’s a buff orpington. Everything else is ‘assorted cochins’.

White cochin

I guess this is supposed to be a blue cochin

The speckly brown one is a partridge cochin,
the stripey guy in back is my little one-eyed chick, still doing fine.

Hey, what are YOU lookin’ at?!

Chicky Pix!

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, chickensLeave a comment

I spent a bit of time with the chicks this morning, just sitting and talking to them, looking them over to make sure no one needed any special attention. They are a week old now. So far, so good. Even the little one-eye’d one is still getting along fine.

I put a big branch in there for them to crawl over and perch on. They seem to enjoy it.

This annoyed girl had a bit of a poopy stuck to her bottom, so I caught her and cleaned her bottom. Turned out it was no big deal, but I figured better safe than sorry – sometimes they can get stopped up. Don’t want that!

Of course since I had caught one, the rest all cowered in terror thinking they were next.

I sprinkled some food out and they started to relax.
Look at the one standing on one foot stretching his wing out – they’re so danged cute!

Just look at this little chubby butt!

Once everyone had some food and water they started relaxing..
..and pretty soon it was nap time.

Removing the old compost pile

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens, garden2 Comments

Almost ten years ago I built this compost box, and have been throwing stuff in there ever since. But I never took any compost out or did anything with it, and it’s been a weedy mess. So today I unscrewed the ends (and discovered I’d nailed the sides together – oh my building skills have grown a lot in the years since then), and pulled the sides down – leaving a perfectly compost box shaped mound of dirt and weeds. Hmmm, now what?

Two of the upright posts were surrounded by a giant anthill. I pulled them out and tossed them into the wagon, and then realized that they were hollowed out and most of the ants were living IN the posts! So what to do with them? I know someone who would enjoy a couple of ant-filled logs…

Happy chickens!

My next challenge is to get all that old compost cleaned up enough to use (there are chunks of sticks and stuff in it), and move it to the garden, which is looking pretty good. I was able to spread peat moss over most of the beds – though I still need a couple more bales of it, mostly to fill my raised bed. I spread flakes of straw on the ground to start killing the grass where the potatoes are going to go. The cardboard is doing a good job on most of the grass, now I just need to take care of the places where the grass is pushing up under the edges of the cardboard, I pretty much need to lay down more cardboard anywhere I still see green. And I guess I could stand to get some PVC to make hoops for some row covers and start getting some lettuce and spinach growing before it gets too warm.

One sick chick

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, chickens2 Comments

I have set up a brooder box in the house (much to the cat’s delight) and moved one chick into it. I have had my eye on this one since I brought them home. She’s a little small, not as active, and only has one eye open. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her, might not be sick, might just be some internal abnormality. I thought she might be better off with a little personalized attention. Mostly I want to see if she’s eating and drinking, and I can’t tell when she’s with the rest of the mob.

Update: in the evening after confirming she was eating, drinking and pooping, we put her back out with the other chicks – she was so happy to see them! There’s so many, I don’t think they even noticed she was gone and accepted her right back into the group.

The rest of the chicks are doing fine, active and happy. When I went to check on them this morning I found them all arranged in a perfect half circle around the hot spot from the lamp. They are picking the temperature that is the most comfortable. The sickly one is in the lower right, the little black and white one who is sitting a little closer to the light.