Our little flock, Olive Eggers, Buff Orpington, Light Brahma, Black Australorp

[Australorpfamily]

Some photos of our little flock. I'm really liking the colors of the Olive Eggers- all the grey ones. When we got them there were darker and lighter grey and decided on these. They are super curious and flighty(zoomies--like rabbits lol) yet friendly.

 

[chrissynemetz]

You have such a lovely flock!

 

[TwoCrows]

Beautiful birds!

 

[Australorpfamily]

They are getting bigger! And our big girls, oldest BAs are starting to lay!

 

[TwoCrows]

They are getting bigger! And our big girls, oldest BAs are starting to lay!

They sure HAVE grown! Very pretty flock!

 

[Australorpfamily]

I have way too many photos of our girls lol

 

[Australorpfamily]

And some close ups lol

 

[Australorpfamily]

Captured some pics of the Nuggets! Lol and friends haha

 

[Australorpfamily]

Our Light Brahmas, the pale one is ShyGirl-green eyes- she's always the last one to come, always standoffish, but this morning she did. The Red One-orange eyes- next to her is always underfoot and has to be a part of the show lol

This morning they were all expecting me to give them superworms lol

Head Hen(her name not top)- Black Australorp with huge floppy comb and wattles, is always nosey and right there too

Warden (middle blue tag of the three BAs)

We love our girls and they are so much fun to sit with. Our Nuggets(the Buff Orpingtons) are always pecking my husband's jeans/legs, and the Olive Eggers are curious from a distance! Haha

 

[Sylvester017]

Yeah, who knew keeping chickens would turn out so addictive?! We've loved all our birds and it pained DH to re-home any bullies even after time-out or separation trials. For a man it affected him whenever one died or was put down at the vet and a couple passed as youngsters.

Raised on a farm I'm used to losing an animal but comforted that we gave it a good life. Sometimes health issues are beyond our control and birds pass. Our vet believes in preserving lives and not an advocate of "putting down" an animal so I know it was an extreme case when he put down one of our Silkies with a massive bleeding ovarian tumor cuz she was dying.

As for time-out issues with aggressive hens -- I recall one bird we separated cuz she was picked on. Oddly, when we re-integrated her she stood her own ground and especially where food was concerned. Another bird pecked her at the feed but she didn't flinch and kept eating and the other bird stopped annoying her. DH and I figured if a bird was timid or flinched is what caused another bird to continue bully behavior? We don't know -- we learn as we go along dealing with different bird personalities.

We have only 6 birds (only supposed to have 5 hens/no roo's per ordinance but we're not sure how long our oldest bird will be around which will bring us down to 5 again) cuz I don't want to have 5 birds only now, then lose one, and have to replace with a new pullet by herself to integrate without a friend. DH doesn't mind adding new birds but I don't want any more. I'm old, don't know how long the Creator gives me on earth, so don't want our birds to outlive me. DH is younger than me and still working and don't think he realizes how much responsibility there is to keeping chickens as a single working person. The love for chicken math interferes with our reasoning sometimes.

Anyway, with our small flock and small yard we have a different dynamic from owners who can have 15, 20, or more birds. One bully in a small flock can cause bully contagion in the rest of the birds so our choices were limited in how we handled our flock. If time-out sessions didn't work we re-homed a bird. Lucky for us that all our more aggressive egg-layer Leghorns and Marans went to a neighbor who wanted more egg-layers.

Later we had a Cuckoo Breda who was a 7.5-lb bully to our 2-lb Silkie so we re-homed the Breda to a rescue friend and she's a content hen. Our rescue friend is a vegetarian so I know this bird will never be on a dinner plate!

RE-HOMED BREDA HEN

FRIEND'S DOG SHARES NAP WITH BREDA HEN