Tales From Chickentown

[scratch'n'peck]

Wow, Chicken town is a busy place. Beautiful photos. I especially like the shot of your chicken surrounded by cherry blossoms.

 

[PrairieChickens]

It's been a hard couple of days in Chickentown.

The family that was supposed to adopt my dog backed out for reasons I won't bore you with, so I had to find another family to take him. Although I'd come to terms with the idea of sending Boomer to live with the first family, I found it was an entirely different matter when I had to send him away to people I don't know. Yesterday, I bid a tearful goodbye to my old friend and watched him ride away in someone else's car, never to be mine again. It absolutely broke my heart. At least I know he'll be taken care of and won't have to live his life like a prisoner, and I'll finally be able to relax a little now that I don't have to worry about him escaping and massacring the flock.

In happier news, the second batch of chicks arrived in the mail this morning. 16 little baby chicks came home at about 7 AM, and most of them are doing very well. There is one chick that isn't thriving--a black copper Marans of unknown gender--but considering the fact I thought it was already dead when I opened the box, it's doing remarkably well. Although it still isn't eating or drinking without prompting, went from lying motionless on its back and gasping for breath to moving around the brooder at will, if a bit wobbly on its feet. I don't have high hopes for this little one, but it may surprise me. If it pulls through, I will name it Max (or Maxine) after Miracle Max from the Princess Bride.

Here are some photos of the new arrivals. I have red sexlinks (golden buff/red star), an appenzeller spitzhauben, a buckey, black copper marans, polish crested, light brahma, and a white cochin. (I think that's everybody!)

 

[PrairieChickens]

Despite making remarkable progress and drinking well on its own, the sickly chick unfortunately did not make it. It was no great surprise, and I'm actually rather relieved that it happened so early on rather than turning out to be a long, drawn-out ordeal. If a chick is going to pass away, I'd rather it suffer as little as possible.

The remaining 15 chicks are doing very well, and aside from a couple of cases of pasty butt, have suffered no maladies or afflictions that require my attention. Some of the red sexlinks are incredibly friendly, and rush over for a tummy rub if they see my hand offered. Today, the chicks got their first taste of greens, and they spent about an hour fighting over scraps of dandelion leaf. Insects have been a part of their diet pretty much since the moment they arrived--no sooner had I set them up in their brooder than a foolish crane fly blundered in and got snapped up. Fortunately, I had had the foresight to put a dish of grit in the brooder from the start, so I don't have to worry about the chicks munching on all of the bugs that keep flying in.

Chickentown briefly had a new, non-chicken resident. While walking from my house to my parents' on a chilly, rainy day, I spotted something in the ditch next to the road. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was a black and white rabbit, soaking wet and looking rather the worse for wear. It didn't run away when I approached, and I was able to scoop it up and carry it the rest of the way to my parents', where I set it up in a cat carrier with some food. Although I had every intention of keeping it, and had made plans to take it to the vet the next day, it sadly passed away that night. Even though I had only had it a few hours, I'd already gotten used to the idea of having a rabbit, and now I find myself seriously considering adopting one when I can afford it. Who knows, maybe Chickentown will become a more diverse community soon.

The chicks I've been hatching out since February are growing fast. Some of the older ones are already trying to make big-chicken noises, and a couple of the little roosters have started trying to figure out how to mate (much to the displeasure of their broodmates!) Each chicken's true colors--both literally and figuratively--is starting to become apparent, and for every timid, shy chicken we have, we have another that wants nothing more than to be held and cuddled.


"Sing soft kitty?"

It's become more apparent than ever just how much... influence... the barred rock roosters have had on our flock. I would say easily half of the chicks we hatched from our own eggs have at least one barred rock parent, and while I did make a point to favor eggs from my BR hen Sweet Basil, it was not nearly enough to account for this prevalence of barred rock genetics! It makes it challenging to tell individuals apart, but so far we haven't needed to--the chicks who want to be held make no secret of the fact, and it isn't unusual for visitors to find an awkward teenaged chicken trying to climb into their laps!

Speaking of awkward, our first Polish Crested cross is starting to feather out....

We're calling him "Mo". Can you guess why?

I'm not entirely sure yet if "Mo" is a male or a female--with the mixed genetics going on here and no idea who the father was, it's really hard to figure out. Time will tell, though I was surprised to discover how calm he was while being handled. Considering who his mother is--one of our flightiest, most bird-brained hens--I fully expected Mo to be a neurotic mess as well, but on the contrary, he was happy to settle down in my hands and gaze inquisitively up at the camera while my husband took photos.If "he" turns out to be a "she", I will be very pleased.

In other news, I am getting closer to my goal of a proper "Rainbow" basket. Ever since I discovered the range of colors chicken eggs can come in, I have wanted to amass a flock that featured the full spectrum of henberry hues. We started with a flock of light-to-medium brown egg layers, but the next year, we acquired white and blue egg layers. A year and a half later, we special-ordered welsummers to offer some dark brown eggs for our basket, and now I have my first black copper marans and pure ameraucanas to add even more color. All that will be left soon is an olive egger, which we may already have in our massive brood of mutt babies--time shall tell.


Almost too pretty to eat!

 

[PrairieChickens]

Construction has begun on the new chicken coop. Really, it's more of a renovation project, since we're converting an old shed into a coop rather than building from scratch. I don't have any pictures yet because I was a little busy with the actual work, and despite her offer to photograph the happenings, my mother vanished as soon as we started. Apparently, our efforts weren't interesting enough to hold her attention.

I've already decided how I will split up the population of Chickentown once we have completed the new coop. The chickens I am interested in breeding will go into one, while the ones I want to avoid breeding will go into the other. This way when I start collecting eggs for incubation again in the fall, I will be able to make sure I'm only incubating the eggs from my best chickens. For the most part, the population will be divided along the lines of friendlies and non-friendlies, though there will be a few exceptions to the rule. My little roo Samurai, despite all of his charm and sweetness, probably shouldn't be bred because of his deformed wing, but I am reluctant to process him as well. He will likely reside in the "non-friendly" coop where he can have company and be a chicken, but not pass on his genetic deformity to the next generation. I may try breeding him at some point in the future, in the off chance that his wing isn't a genetic flaw after all, but for obvious reasons, I will limit the number of eggs I hatch from his stock at first.


Samurai has one wing that is larger than the other, making mobility difficult for him.

The eggs that our chicken class set are in their second week of incubation. Last week, the kids got to watch me candle their eggs, and see the babies moving inside. They are very excited about the upcoming hatch and ask me every day at school how the eggs are doing. They were disappointed to learn that they would not be able to take the resulting chicks home, but most of them understood why it wasn't possible. They will at least get to show off "their" chicks at an upcoming end-of-the-year shindig, and I have even made plans to record some of the hatches and replay them at the dinner so their parents can see as well. When it is all said and done, the chicks will come back home to live in Chickentown, and the incubator will go up into storage until the fall when I will hatch out some chicks to raise for spring pullets.


Pipsqueak is one of many hens whose eggs are currently in the incubator.

The battle rages on with Zip, the Old English Game Bantam rooster that I bought from a local breeder to be a mate to Pipsqueak. Although he's healthy and robust and has served well as my own personal alarm clock, he has had a stubborn case of mites that defies my attempts to treat it. As much as I loathe using harsh or toxic chemicals, I may have no choice but to resort to stronger methods if his current medication doesn't start having an effect. Besides which, I am hoping that I will be able to stop torturing the poor bird soon--he is convinced that I exist only to make his life miserable, and for a bird that was never really socialized, that's just another setback to taming him.


I was framed, I tellz ya!

 

[PrairieChickens]

Hello again. It's been a while. A lot has happened in Chickentown since my last report. Our last batch of eggs hatched well, and added more than thirty little feathered friends to our flock. Although I'd intended for them to hatch on a schedule that would allow the students to watch them, chicks are rarely concerned with our schedules and ended up hatching early. The last chick to hatch pushed itself free of its shell as the kids were getting off the bus to start their class. Talk about timing! If they were disappointed by missing the action, though, it didn't last long. They got to handle and feed the new babies, and for a few lucky kids whose chicks were easy to distinguish for the rest, they got to name "their" chicks. One notable thing about this hatch: out of 32 chicks, 18 were barred rocks/barred rock mixes. Note to self: Keep the BR rooster penned up the next time I want to hatch eggs if I want to have any variety in my chicks!

The babies that hatched from our last incubation got to be guests of honor at our last big shindig of the year. I deliberately timed the hatch so that we'd have fluffy baby chicks just in time for the big dinner, and they were a total hit! Kids lined up around the block to get to feed the chicks chick starter from their hands, and the socialization was really good for the babies. By the end of the day, they were so relaxed about being handled that it was no challenge at all to transfer them to and from the brooder. Although they're no longer so blase about people at this age, they are still some of the calmest chickens in my flock to this day.

Feeding the babies

Originally, I'd planned to put the incubator into storage until September, at which point I would hatch out more chicks to raise up for spring pullets. Unfortunately, we suffered an onslaught of fox attacks, losing more than a dozen birds in less than a week. Among the casualties were Polly and Ninja, two chicks from my first hatch that were family favorites. We also lost Sugar, our bantam d'uccle hen, and many others. A red rooster from one of my MPC orders (a mystery chick we suspect is a New Hampshire) was also attacked, but despite severe injuries and a grim chance of survival, he pulled through and has since made a full recovery. His experience in the chicken infirmary made him a total sweetheart, and we have dubbed him "Rocky". As long as he doesn't develop any bad habits later on, he should have a home for life with us.


"Why does everyone keep shouting 'Adrian!' when they see me?"

Because we lost so many chickens to the fox, I decided to hatch out one batch of eggs this summer to recoup our losses. I had already set up our rooster Mars in a private pen with three of my favorite hens, and so when the time came that I wanted eggs to hatch, I just collected from their nesting box. Twenty eggs went into the incubator on June 9th, 17 from the Mars' harem, and 3 Polish crested eggs from the main flock (because I couldn't resist!) At almost the exact same time, our hen Anna went broody AGAIN, so we tucked four bantam eggs under her, with a sneaky hen adding a fifth egg that night. Although I haven't candled any of the broody eggs, the eggs in the incubator are all showing movement and development.


"It's hard work being this sexy."

In addition to being a daddy 17 times over, Mars's lot has also improved in that he can now be let out to free range with his girls pretty much every day. They've been in their private coop and run long enough that they recognize it as home, and because it is set up on the far side of the yard from the main flock's coop, they identify that half of the yard as their territory and mostly stick to it. This means Mars and Gryffindor haven't had an altercation in ages, despite being out in the yard at the same time. It helps that the fenced-in garden provides a natural boundary to help them establish their own separate territories, and the massive influx of new upstart juveniles appearing in the flock keeps Gryff so busy he has little time left to go looking for trouble with Mars! Despite the fact that our flock has increased by over 100 chickens since Gryffindor started attacking Mars, things have actually become more peaceful rather than less.


"I don't know about you, but I could use a vacation!"

Meanwhile, the last surviving pullet from my first incubator hatch laid her first egg this week! Much to my delight, she is an olive egger! A cross between Gryffindor, an Easter Egger, and Winnie, a white rock, Hedwig apparently inherited her father's blue egg gene and her mother's brown, resulting in this little beauty.


My first olive egg.

Now that Hedwig is laying, it's only a matter of time before my other newbies start. Zen, my silver-laced wyandotte, is already looking very red in the comb and wattles, and Daenerys, my Ameraucana, can't be far behind. By August, I should be up to my ears in eggs!

Current population: 164

 

[LadyBroody]

Wonderful story! Thanks for sharing!

 

[ChickenChatten]

What a nice thread! Did you have any luck with your two Old English Games?

 

[PrairieChickens]

Zip is undergoing an intensive mite treatment right now, but has shown significant improvement. In the future I'll know to be a lot more aggressive with the treatment, but I was too light-handed in the beginning, which drew things out longer than they should have been. Once Zip is clean, he will get to meet Pip, and hopefully they'll hit it off. In addition, I managed to get three more OEGB chicks from the store during chick days, and at least one of them is a rooster. If Pip doesn't like Zip, maybe she'll prefer "Tiny Tim".

 

[PrairieChickens]

Babies incoming!

Two chicks hatched under the broody yesterday, with three more eggs to go. They're VERY early, not being due until July 1st, but as usual, they took no interest in the schedules we set for them. In addition to the two chicks and three eggs under Anna, there are 18 eggs in lockdown in the incubator. A few have already pipped, and candling shows activity in all of the eggs. There's nothing quite like putting a flashlight to an egg and seeing the shadow of a tiny baby cheeping at you!


The two new arrivals. The yellow chick hatched first, and the black chick second.


Of course, not every egg can be hatched into a chick! Most of the eggs laid in Chickentown go on to be delicious meals for somebody--either us or one of our devoted customers! Here's a photo of our haul yesterday, minus two "bonus eggs" that our hens laid in the evening after this picture was taken.

The tiny olive eggs will be used for our own consumption, especially since we found them after they'd been sitting out in the straw pile a few days. (Sneaky hen!) We don't mind eating smaller eggs that may be a few days old, but we'd never pass that off to a customer.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Hatch Update!

All five eggs under the broody hen hatched and are thriving. Of the 18 eggs that made it to lockdown, only 2 quit. All but two of the remaining eggs have hatched, with the last two latenicks taking their sweet time after pipping externally. Photos of the incubated chicks will be posted once they've all dried off, but here's some shots of Super Broody Anna and her crew.