Chickies, Chickies, Chickies!! Meet the new additions! (Pic heavy!)

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After a long, long car ride, we are home again with the newest additions to the flock, Te Heihei! 8 little chickies, all of different breeds!

I ordered white egg layers mostly, because I wanted to add white eggs to my multicolored egg basket and because I wanted my niece and nephew to be able to dye Easter eggs from hens that are happy, healthy, and free of cages. The white egg layers are as follows:

Rangi the Ancona:

Rangi is TROUBLE, boy! Already, I've caught her trying to fly out of the brooder and climbing up onto the EcoGlow. Don't fall for the innocent face!

Here comes trouble!

Roha the Exchequer Leghorn:

There is but one easy way to tell Rangi from Roha--Rangi has a blotch of black under her left eye. Otherwise, they are twins:

Ihi the golden Campine:

Man, does this chick ever like to be the center of attention! Any time the camera is out, Ihi is standing in the way!


Marama the Egyptian Fayoumi:

I am still meeting Marama, as she has spent the majority of her time under the EcoGlow. She is very energetic and curious thus far, always poking her beak into things!


Tiwhiri the light brown Leghorn:

Tiwhiri is the smart one of the brood, the first to figure out how to drink and the first to figure out how to eat.


Huka Kairakau the silver Lakenvelder:

Huka is already a little diva, having spent most of her time voicing her disapproval of things or glaring at me.




Then, because I have no self control, I also added two bantams to my order. They are straight run, so I'm pretty much expecting both to be boys at this point.

Hika Ma the Easter-egger bantam:

Look at the eyeliner!! Ma (pronounced 'May' ) is a ham for attention, sitting calmly in your hand for as long as you want to hold him!

"*poke-poke* Are you awake, Huka?"



Weheruatanga o te Po the black frizzle Cochin bantam:

Po is... not doing well at this point. I'm keeping him stable and hoping he pulls through.



Group shot!

Left to right, we have Po's butt, Ma, Rangi, Ihi, and Roha.

Moments later, Ihi oozes out from under the EcoGlow. NOW she's comfy!

 

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Oh, gosh, yes! You should have seen the look on this one woman's face when I told her I was going to pick up chicks this summer--and then had to explain that I meant baby chickens.

 

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Thought I would post this here. Someone asked how to pronounce some of these names, so here you go.

I am certainly no expert in Maori, but this is how I've been saying their names:
Rangi is supposed to be WRONG-ee, but I've somehow gotten myself into the habit of saying RAN-gee (with a hard g as in 'go' ).
Roha is row-HA
Ihi is EE-hee
Marama is pretty much how it looks--ma-RAH-ma
Tiwhiri, I just found out, is supposed to be tih-FEE-ree, but I have been pronouncing it tih-WEE-ree
Hika Ma is HEE-kah may
Huka Kairakau is a little complicated: who-KAH kah-EE-rah-kah-OO
And finally, Weheruatanga o te Po: way-HAY-roh-ah-TAH-ng-ah oh tey POH

 

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Huka working the catwalk:

Marama, who shockingly jumped onto my lap AND let me pet her!

Look out Tiwhiri! Po's coming in for a landing!!

Rangi on my shoulder, where she rightfully belongs, of course.

The boys

 

[chooks4life]

Beautiful chicks!

Off topic, unless I am very much mistaken, Hika Ma and possibly a few of the others (I think Tiwhiri too) have incorrect leg scaling. Hard to tell with the focus usually being on your lovely and healthy chicks. But I think a few have off-centre scales which indicate bad genes that shouldn't be bred on with as they lead to chicks that are spraddled due to skeletal and muscular deformity. Dunno if you were planning on breeding them though. Or if you already know and already noticed. Apologies if so.

I got some chicks from breeders with those leg scales and ended up with chicks that either did a too-far-apart pose or too-inwards pose and either way were effectively never going to be normal despite managing to get around somewhat. Their parents walked fine but had that scaling indicating their offspring were going to be deformed. The breeders don't often say why they got rid of those chicks in particular. Books say to check for straight leg scaling and discard chicks that have different scaling but don't say why... I learnt the hard way, lol. Or not lol. Still, they look great and happy, best wishes to you with yours.

 

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Well, this is a thread for new additions to my flock, so I guess I will post her here as well. I splurged for my birthday. Well, kind of. Someone on the Indiana thread had some Silkies and Showgirls, a bunch of boys and one little beardless pullet, that he was offering for free, so I thought, why not? So meet the newest addition to the flock, my new little Silkie pullet:

She's about 3 weeks older than the babies, but still peeping. After thinking it over, I decided to name her Margaret after Margaret Dumont. When I asked her how she liked the name, she looked directly at me and said, "Peep peep peep peep?"

She is in quarantine for now, so she will meet the other babies and the big girls in a few weeks. I'm going to update with her here along with the other new additions.


And speaking of, our little peepers are growing up! Their voices are changing and they're getting so big! I'm finding them out with the big girls more often than inside their pen anymore (well, except the boys, because Hika Ma is in a separate cage and poor Po can't fly ), so I'm thinking integration is imminent. I'm training them to go to the coop at night right now, so hopefully they'll start to figure it out and I'll be able to free-range them without worrying about where they'll end up.

 

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For sure! He'd better cool it or he's gonna be booted from my main flock! Luckily the fence between him and Margaret is too narrow for him to fit his head through, as he has tried to grab her a couple times, too!


In other news, I will be taking pictures today as the little ones are 3 months old! I am going to switch to a monthly photo op, because classes start in one week and I'm not sure I'll have the time for a weekly photo op from that point on. However, I'll be sure to update here, with or without pictures, as frequently as possible.

Until today's pictures are taken, though, have a short video of Po crowing! He was really going this morning! I got several videos of him crowing (I picked the best one, of course), and he crowed several times before and after I took the videos! Must be with Hika Ma out of the way, Po is feeling more like the man of the flock. He's already got his eyes on the Sebright hens, too... Anyway, here is the video:




[VIDEO]

 

[Brandi Leigh]

I feel some chicken math coming on.

 

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I remember putting the brooder up for these babies in February! I'm trying not to be too excited for these babies as it's a long, long wait I have before I get them, but, well... e



Miss Margaret has decided to start laying again today after her first try brooding at 7 months old! Only took her a month. I'm still waiting for Huka to lay, but she seems content to wait until next spring. Or perhaps she's on strike until I turn the outside thermostat up--clearly it's my fault that it got cold out there.

Meanwhile, I'm getting about 3 eggs a day from the other five, such good girls. Ihi has been laying double yolkers for a while, but yesterday she laid a single-yolk 'torpedo egg' that was the same length as her double yolkers, but thin. Wish I had pictures--these eggs are being used as fast as I bring them in! Oh, well.

 

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Okay, since I'm here, how about a mid-month update?

I mostly wanted to say this: Rangi's wattle fell off!! After the frostbite, her right wattle got all shriveled up and dark, and then it fell off. Blech! She looks really silly now, though, because her other wattle is healing fine. So she has 1 1/2 wattles.

Meanwhile, I think my young ladies have been stressed by the cold. Ihi and Tiwhiri are molting at the moment. I'll have to get out there and take some pictures, because Ihi lost all of her big tail feathers and she looks so silly now! Whiri's just a bit of a pin-head. They all quit laying, too, so all the eggs I'm getting are from three of the older girls that are back into lay.

Marge is the only one of the youngsters that doesn't seem too bothered by the cold. Little Marge, after everything I read about Silkies being cold-sensitive! She's taking it like a champ and not letting anything slow her down!

Mr. Po has been behaving himself quite well lately, too. A few of the big girls are squatting for him now, so his focus has been drawn away from the pullets, at least for now. He likes to crow at about 5 am, and I have a baby monitor in the coop that delivers the sound directly to my room. Fortunately, I've begun sleeping through it now.



I've been resisting chick fever for a long time now, but I think it's starting to hit me now!

110 days 'til chickies!!

110 days until I meet Georgette, Vivienne, Mabel, and Chickory, anyway. (Still not 100% on their names, though... Everything must be just right!)

It shouldn't be long before / after that that I meet my Legbars, either. Have I mentioned their names here? I swear, there's a story behind them: Romanadvoratrelundar and Serenadellatrovella.



Well, anyway, that's all that's been going on here. We're supposed to be back to above-freezing temps by the time the babies are 9 months old, so that should make for some nice pictures I hope. Can't wait to see the grass again!

ETA: I misspelled a name!