2022 The Rest of the Story

[3KillerBs]

Ah...I don't have sand...that explains it.

Perhaps.

My ground is NEVER muddy so they never get those clumps of ick on their foot feathers that I hear about from people whose soils are better for gardening than mine.

 

[3KillerBs]

This is from yesterday -- pretty much the moment I took the little, yellow walls down and widened their world:

I realized that the gap between the block and the wall was just exactly the size to trap a chick so I closed it up tight against the mesh.

 

[3KillerBs]

In other news, 4.5-month-old Repecka, a California White, got a butt check today and had very nearly 2 fingers of distance between her pelvic bones. White eggs coming soon!

 

[3KillerBs]

I forgot to look at the actual temperature, but it's a moderate day today -- just barely warm enough for me to sit next to the brooder in a t-shirt -- and in half an hour of sitting there I didn't see the little ones use their brooder plate even once.

It was cute how,

• They first fled from the giant in the doorway,
• Then one bold chick decided to come to the wet mash, triggering a mad rush to the dishes,
• Then one chick ran back to the concrete block, followed in a rush by the others, except for one, who snatched a couple more bites before following more slowly,
• Then they rushed back for more food,
• Then they went back to the concrete block to snuggle up for a nap.

They're a week old tomorrow.

 

[3KillerBs]

The Easter hatch girls are roosting on the main roost tonight.

Perhaps they got tired of being picked up and shifted. Perhaps they were jealous of the SLWs who are roosting up on the diagonal bracing beam.

Now if I can get the Java -- the biting broody who was *supposed* to be sold except that everyone kept showing up with little kids and I didn't want to ruin a kid's experience of chickens by selling their parents a bird who draws blood defending her nest -- to stop trying to sleep in the boxes when she's not broody.

 

[3KillerBs]

I just got good news from my chickens.

Repecka, the young California White, laid her first egg today. I don't have a picture, but it's perfect even in it's smallness.

I figured she'd lay soon because she's been roosting among the adult hens for 10 days to 2 weeks, but I was so excited to see a white egg in the box!

 

[Sally PB]

Good girl, Repecka!

 

[3KillerBs]

Good girl, Repecka!

I'm so tremendously tickled to see that little white egg!

I hope she will live up to Chipotle's precedent as an extraordinary layer.

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

I just got good news from my chickens.

Repecka, the young California White, laid her first egg today. I don't have a picture, but it's perfect even in it's smallness.

I figured she'd lay soon because she's been roosting among the adult hens for 10 days to 2 weeks, but I was so excited to see a white egg in the box!

Awe congratulations on her first egg and it being white too!!!

 

[3KillerBs]

Awe congratulations on her first egg and it being white too!!!

My goal is to have my Australorps being my only brown layers, California Whites as white layers, French Cuckoo Marans as my dark brown layers, and ???? for blue layers.

I think that an entire flock of California Whites would drive me crazy, but they're the dash of hot sauce on top of my mellow, laid-back flock.