Raising Chickens, 2nd time around.

[Skellapi]

I thought I'd share with you all my second go at raising chickens. Our first flock was comprised of 3 buff orpingtons

a little australorp

our rooster

and 4 ducks

Sadly our first flock was devastated by fox attacks. They first got one of our khaki campbells named Coffee, then our Pekin named Sugar and buff drake named Cream. I found Sugar in the field without a head and Cream's feathers strewn throughout the woods. After that our 4 hens went missing during the day and never returned. All that was left was our rooster name Rudy and his new buddy Mocha the Khaki Campbell . They stuck close together and were never far apart. One morning I came to let them out and both were missing! After freaking out, my mom and I found Rudy hiding on the front porch. We found Mochas feathers scattered in the woods. Rudy refused to go back in the coop and I finally convinced my mom we had to do something. My brothers helped us out and built a better coop while my mom and I worked on a fence. This was all in 2015.

So, after fixing up our coop and fence, we decided to give it another shot. One June 10th we called the post office and learned our chicks had arrived!! I was happy when we went to pick up our new chicks from the post office. You could hear them peeping up a storm in the back. They were so cute after we got them in their brooder.

Baby marshmallow looked so fluffy.

My favorite babies, who we only have one remaining.

Our photogenic one. Work it chickie!
They began to get too big for the house( and constantly flew out of their pin)and finally we put them in their new home.

They adjusted better to going outside then we did. Sadly, the first night out we lost one of the polish chicks. I was sad but we still had more chickens to take care of. After constantly being told to not let them free range, I restricted free range time to an hour before they went in.

They still found ways out of their run though. I'd feed them in the morning, then 30 minutes later about 7 of them would be out wandering the backyard.

Two days ago my favorite little chickie named Priscilla went missing after I pinned everyone up.

I searched all over our property but I couldn't find any trace of her. She will be missed greatly.
The new flock is doing great, we have 5 Easter Egger hens( the orange and black one is named Halloween, the white and gold is named Marshmellow)

, 4 Wyandotte hens

2 blue Cochin hens

2 Cochin roosters that were supposed to be blue but they're pretty so I don't care(we call the dark blue and white one cow)

a Polish rooster

and finally our remaining first flock member Rudy

The baby roosters are starting to crow since last week! So far I've only been able to see Presley (our polsih rooster) crow, but it's.so.adorable!! The girls are supposed to be laying within the next the next couple weeks so fingers crossed! I've heard quite a bit that you can tell what color eggs Easter Eggers are going to lay by what color their feet are. Most of ours are green and one or two look bluish-black. If anyone can tell if that's true or not that would be welcome. If anyone can help us think of names for the rest we would appreciate it.

Now that I've jabbered your ear off, thank you for reading and I'll try to add new pictures as they grow older. Hopefully as fall and winter set in they do good. Our last flock did pretty well even with the snow reaching to my upper thigh, which is a lot to a 5'1 shortie. If you guys have any tips, tricks and advice I'd be happy to here it! We've been learning as we go ever since last year and help is very welcome. Especially when they get old enough to start having babies. Thank you again for reading.

 

[Venevee]

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. It's never easy losing chickens, especially your favorites. I've been raising chickens for five years now, and I've had my fair share of predator incidents.
We use to have a dog, and it definetly helped keep the predators off our property. Since she passed last fall, I lost my favorite mottled D'Uccle pullet: and several other chickens. We free range our chickens and they have a lot of property to range on. We let them out in the morning at about 8:00-9:00 and then close the coop door as soon as they are in their roosts. We've had coyotes come into the yard since my dog passed as early as 5:00, 6:00 in the evening.
I've never owned Americana's (Easter eggers), but I don't think the color of their legs has any relation to the color of what their eggs will be. It sounds a lot like the famous myth, "The color of the chicken is the color of the egg."
If you have any questions, I would be happy to help!

I loved the pictures of your flock by the way, they are really beautiful birds! It's clear that your really care about them and they seem very happy.
Here's a few pictures of my flock (I don't have a lot of pictures of the birds I have right now, but I do have some of the chicken's I've had throughout the years):

^ Aros, my porcelain D'Uccle cockeral. He's about 6 months old now, he was about 4-5 months in this picture so he's grown and looks different now.

^This is my Grand Champion Mille Fleur D'uccle Rooster, who passed almost a year ago. His name was Apollo.

^Cyclone, my golden neck D'Uccle cockeral, same age as Aros. (That's dirt btw on his comb).

^This is Mars, one of my favorite roosters I've ever had. He would chase off any of the mean roosters that attacked us. And he was super gentle with people and even the chicks the hens hatched! He would even help feed the baby chicks. He passed nearly a year ago too, but he have his son, who looks a lot like him and even crows just like him. He is equally gentle and cares for the baby chicks too.




^ This is Miruna, my Grand Champion hen. She's a Silver Spangled Hamburg. She was and still is my favorite chicken. She passed about three years ago.

I currently have about 35 chickens and I plan on starting my own buisness in breeding D'Uccles and D'Anvers.

 

[Skellapi]

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. It's never easy losing chickens, especially your favorites. I've been raising chickens for five years now, and I've had my fair share of predator incidents.
We use to have a dog, and it definetly helped keep the predators off our property. Since she passed last fall, I lost my favorite mottled D'Uccle pullet: and several other chickens. We free range our chickens and they have a lot of property to range on. We let them out in the morning at about 8:00-9:00 and then close the coop door as soon as they are in their roosts. We've had coyotes come into the yard since my dog passed as early as 5:00, 6:00 in the evening.
I've never owned Americana's (Easter eggers), but I don't think the color of their legs has any relation to the color of what their eggs will be. It sounds a lot like the famous myth, "The color of the chicken is the color of the egg."
If you have any questions, I would be happy to help!

I loved the pictures of your flock by the way, they are really beautiful birds! It's clear that your really care about them and they seem very happy.
Here's a few pictures of my flock (I don't have a lot of pictures of the birds I have right now, but I do have some of the chicken's I've had throughout the years):

^ Aros, my porcelain D'Uccle cockeral. He's about 6 months old now, he was about 4-5 months in this picture so he's grown and looks different now.

^This is my Grand Champion Mille Fleur D'uccle Rooster, who passed almost a year ago. His name was Apollo.

^Cyclone, my golden neck D'Uccle cockeral, same age as Aros. (That's dirt btw on his comb).

^This is Mars, one of my favorite roosters I've ever had. He would chase off any of the mean roosters that attacked us. And he was super gentle with people and even the chicks the hens hatched! He would even help feed the baby chicks. He passed nearly a year ago too, but he have his son, who looks a lot like him and even crows just like him. He is equally gentle and cares for the baby chicks too.




^ This is Miruna, my Grand Champion hen. She's a Silver Spangled Hamburg. She was and still is my favorite chicken. She passed about three years ago.

I currently have about 35 chickens and I plan on starting my own buisness in breeding D'Uccles and D'Anvers.

You're chickens are so pretty! I wish we could try to get a dog to help protect them but i've been forbidden to bring home dogs from work. Hopefully our new roosters don't follow in Rudy's footsteps, which is attacking me.
We have 12 acres of property, mostly woods, so I worry when they free range. I have quite a few pictures of my chickens since someone got m a camera for christmas last year.

Good luck on your business, hopefuly it runs smoothley. Thank you for the help, one of the vets I work with has given me some tips to try for winter when it comes up.

 

[Skellapi]

One of the escape artists today. She's not even ashamed, just foraging away.

After a little searching, I found the rest of the escapees having dust baths under the holly tree.

I looked in the coop to see who all was left

The two roosters were hanging out together inside, while everyone else was underneath

I let everyone else out because they looked lonely( Rudy was pacing the fence too much) and they flew/ran to our back porch

That's all the photos I could get today, my camera died

Well I'll try to add more tomorrow after work but for now I'm off to make chocolate raspberry cupcakes, yum!

 

[Skellapi]

I got home too late from work(and was distracted by my universal Yums box arriving) to get some pictures before it turned dark. I did get some of them in the coop though.

Some of them chilling on the roosting pole.

They like to sit waaaayyyy up high in the coop.

She's saying "No pictures!"

And then the rest like to huddle in the corner. There won't be a post tomorrow because after I get off work I'm headed to do an Annapolis ghost tour.

I'm excited, I've been told they're fun.

 

[Skellapi]

Okay, so I finally got around to taking pictures today!
It looks like I can only update every Thursday but what can you do?

One of the wyendottes, her waddles are getting redder.

Little halloween was curious about the camera.

The splash rooster is just getting soooo fluffy!

Our mottled Cochin is so white now

He used to be so blue

Our Little Rock star getting bigger and louder everyday! He's about a quarter size of Rudy now.

That's all the photos I got today since SOMEONE kept moving my camera( I'm looking at you buster) I'll be back Thursday with more photos and maybe some first egg photos, fingers crossed though!

 

[Skellapi]

So I honestly completely forgot about this thread. Whoops

Work got super busy since we had techs leaving and training new people, so after forevvver I can update this thread. Sadly we thought we got the fox earlier last year but that wasn't the case. He got quite a lot of the chickens. Presley

, Marshmallow

who died in my arms, Batman

Sky

Ash

Betty

and Matilda

RIP. We still have 8 left Rudy, Loraine, Cow, Paint, Storm, Smoke, Doris and Halloween. We got the fox now though which is great. His den was easy to find and put traps up. So in wake of this bad news have some fun news. We have new baby chicks coming in about a week!! I'll update with pics if I get the chance. Maybe or maybe not since the schedule at work is gonna change since we hired someone new again. Have some photos of the flock till then.

So that's all for tonight, again hopefully I have time to update and take pics sometime this week hopefully!! If you guys actually wanna see more pics regularly you can check out the instagram @stormyflock. Have a good week everyone!!