- Thread starter
- #51
Wow, time gets away from me. So here's the latest news from Chickentown:
We have three broodies at the moment. Anna hatched out 7 beautiful bantam mutts, 5 of which are actually her own eggs! This is her fourth brood, but the first time she's had any of her own chicks to raise. Despite the fact that Anna is a buff bantam cochin, all of the babies she hatched out are black. It sure is easy to tell that the black was a dominant gene! A bantam d'uccle is also sitting on eggs, which are getting close to hatching. She's just finally figuring out that I'm on her side, and has started accepting food and water when I offer it to her in the nest. (I know they get down to feed and drink and poop on their own, but it's the first chance I've had to interact with this girl since she was a baby, and I'm taking it.) A third hen, hatched by our chicken class back in May, started stubbornly sitting on an empty "nest" of burlap sacks in the shed. I gave her about a dozen eggs and transferred her to a pet carrier that I can lock up at night. She is very serious about making these eggs hatch!
A temperature plunge hit most of the country, including Chickentown. As I feared, the shock was too much, and I lost one of my young chicks despite heat lamps and other accommodations. Though I normally resist the temptation to coddle my young chickens, I am seriously considering moving the young chicks inside overnight. Normally I would let them tough out the cold temperatures, but the change was just too abrupt, and even my older chickens are suffering from it. (The chicks under Anna, however, are toasty warm.)
One group of chooks that has weathered the temperature extremes well are the youngsters in April's coop. April is a friend of mine that thought very little of chickens when we met, but after spending time with me and my birds, she quickly became as addicted to chickens as I am. Since they're banned in the town she lives in, she has been unable to keep them at her house, but I agreed to let her set up a coop and start a brood in Chickentown. To start her off, I bought her a standard white cochin for her birthday back in April, which she named Ailis and we kept in the main coop with my flock. A few months later, April bought her chicken coop and ordered her own brood of chicks from MPC. Ailis didn't join her new baby sisters right away because she had grown up around my main flock, and recognized them as her family. I hesitated to remove her from the familiar social surroundings and put her in with a bunch of babies, but it ended up being much easier than I expected. Ailis, as it turns out, is a very sexy little ball of feathers, and the boys were rather relentless in their pursuit of her. One day, tired of seeing poor Ailis getting chased hither, thither, and yon, I scooped her up and put her in with the babies. At last, she would have some relief from the relentless pursuit of the cockerels.
At first, Ailis resented her new surroundings, and fretted constantly to be let out so that she could rejoin the main flock. (I don't know exactly what the sounds she was making meant in Chicken Talk, but I'm pretty sure they weren't polite.) But after she'd been confined with the young brood fora couple of days, Ailis seemed to realize that she had it pretty good in her new digs, free of the harassment she'd suffered in the main flock. When I started letting the babies out to free range, Ailis flocked with them without any further need for coaxing, and would return faithfully to their little coop at night to sleep.
As for the youngsters, they also saw the advantages to having Ailis as a roommate. It didn't take them long to figure out that Ailis was a cuddle bug, and before we knew it, all of the juveniles were squeezing underneath her to sleep at night. That alone was funny enough, but it gets better... Zip, our OEGB rooster, was finally able to join the main flock. Finding the roosters in the main coop too abrasive for his liking, he moved himself into April's coop and... right under Ailis! That's right, Zip, a full grown rooster, cuddles under Ailis too! How is Pipsqueak ever going to take him seriously? The upside is that even with this cold snap, all of the chicks in April's coop (And Zip, too) have been able to keep toasty warm. If only I had a few dozen more Ailis's to go around...
We have three broodies at the moment. Anna hatched out 7 beautiful bantam mutts, 5 of which are actually her own eggs! This is her fourth brood, but the first time she's had any of her own chicks to raise. Despite the fact that Anna is a buff bantam cochin, all of the babies she hatched out are black. It sure is easy to tell that the black was a dominant gene! A bantam d'uccle is also sitting on eggs, which are getting close to hatching. She's just finally figuring out that I'm on her side, and has started accepting food and water when I offer it to her in the nest. (I know they get down to feed and drink and poop on their own, but it's the first chance I've had to interact with this girl since she was a baby, and I'm taking it.) A third hen, hatched by our chicken class back in May, started stubbornly sitting on an empty "nest" of burlap sacks in the shed. I gave her about a dozen eggs and transferred her to a pet carrier that I can lock up at night. She is very serious about making these eggs hatch!
A temperature plunge hit most of the country, including Chickentown. As I feared, the shock was too much, and I lost one of my young chicks despite heat lamps and other accommodations. Though I normally resist the temptation to coddle my young chickens, I am seriously considering moving the young chicks inside overnight. Normally I would let them tough out the cold temperatures, but the change was just too abrupt, and even my older chickens are suffering from it. (The chicks under Anna, however, are toasty warm.)
One group of chooks that has weathered the temperature extremes well are the youngsters in April's coop. April is a friend of mine that thought very little of chickens when we met, but after spending time with me and my birds, she quickly became as addicted to chickens as I am. Since they're banned in the town she lives in, she has been unable to keep them at her house, but I agreed to let her set up a coop and start a brood in Chickentown. To start her off, I bought her a standard white cochin for her birthday back in April, which she named Ailis and we kept in the main coop with my flock. A few months later, April bought her chicken coop and ordered her own brood of chicks from MPC. Ailis didn't join her new baby sisters right away because she had grown up around my main flock, and recognized them as her family. I hesitated to remove her from the familiar social surroundings and put her in with a bunch of babies, but it ended up being much easier than I expected. Ailis, as it turns out, is a very sexy little ball of feathers, and the boys were rather relentless in their pursuit of her. One day, tired of seeing poor Ailis getting chased hither, thither, and yon, I scooped her up and put her in with the babies. At last, she would have some relief from the relentless pursuit of the cockerels.
At first, Ailis resented her new surroundings, and fretted constantly to be let out so that she could rejoin the main flock. (I don't know exactly what the sounds she was making meant in Chicken Talk, but I'm pretty sure they weren't polite.) But after she'd been confined with the young brood fora couple of days, Ailis seemed to realize that she had it pretty good in her new digs, free of the harassment she'd suffered in the main flock. When I started letting the babies out to free range, Ailis flocked with them without any further need for coaxing, and would return faithfully to their little coop at night to sleep.
As for the youngsters, they also saw the advantages to having Ailis as a roommate. It didn't take them long to figure out that Ailis was a cuddle bug, and before we knew it, all of the juveniles were squeezing underneath her to sleep at night. That alone was funny enough, but it gets better... Zip, our OEGB rooster, was finally able to join the main flock. Finding the roosters in the main coop too abrasive for his liking, he moved himself into April's coop and... right under Ailis! That's right, Zip, a full grown rooster, cuddles under Ailis too! How is Pipsqueak ever going to take him seriously? The upside is that even with this cold snap, all of the chicks in April's coop (And Zip, too) have been able to keep toasty warm. If only I had a few dozen more Ailis's to go around...
