Adventures in Urban Chicken Keeping on the Left Coast (aka Chooksworth)

[HighStreetCoop]

All the girls but Venetia are laying now. Babs has an EPIC egg song. First time I heard it, I thought something was wrong and rushed outside to find her strutting down the ramp and just singing/cackling like mad. The others are quiet and don't sing at all. I'm already giving away eggs to friends as 3 a day is waaaaay more than I'll ever use/eat.

 

[aart]

Nice!

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Chooks are 7 months old now. The girls are laying pretty regularly (every once in awhile I only get 3 eggs). Sylvester continues to fill out. He's really starting to get a tail now. He does NOT have split wing as I feared. Apparently that was just some strange feathering in stage. He's leaning forward in these shots, so his wing is lower than he normally holds it.

 

[HighStreetCoop]

The friend who took my extra trio sent me a shot of them (I think it's from last month). He's not as big as Sylvester is and the girls aren't as big as my girls either. Their feathers also aren't NEARLY as nice. She's feeding a standard pelleted feed, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick with my more expensive one. The difference in overall condition seems pretty obvious to me.

 

[McCoyPoultry]

Well I'm new here! But i love your pictures!!! I love your splash boys! They are lovely!

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Well I'm new here! But i love your pictures!!! I love your splash boys! They are lovely!

Hello and welcome! I'm pretty pleased with my big splash boy so far. He just keeps getting prettier.

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Eight months old now. They got a big bag of leaves over the weekend and have been having a blast digging through them. Babs has gone broody on me and shows no signs of letting up. She's been on the nest for a week now. I broke down and gave her some fake eggs Saturday. Will get a few chicks from the feed store in a couple of weeks and slip them under her if she's still sitting. [not just giving her their own eggs because fertility is hit and miss; too fluffy]

 

[henless]

Babs has gone broody on me and shows no signs of letting up. She's been on the nest for a week now. I broke down and gave her some fake eggs Saturday. Will get a few chicks from the feed store in a couple of weeks and slip them under her if she's still sitting. [not just giving her their own eggs because fertility is hit and miss; too fluffy]

The lady I got my English BBS from has to trim the feathers around the vent area on hen and roo to help with fertility.

Love your chooks, specially Sylvester & Babs. Such pretty coloring on both, on all of them really.

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Yes, I was advised to pluck if I wanted better fertility. I don't really care though, since I don't want to breed; and can't imagine what Sylvester's reaction would be to me attempting to pluck his booty (he was annoyed enough when I had to trim poo off Clorinda). But of course I now have TWO broody girls to deal with (Phoebe has also claimed a box). Trying to decide if I should buy random chicks or talk to @Papa Brooder about some mottled chicks.

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Well, three of the four girls went broody, and no matter what I did, they STAYED broody. So I let them sit on fake eggs for a couple weeks and last night I slipped day old chicks under them. Found the roo snuggled down by the nest boxes rather than roosting with the non-broody. It was kind of adorable.

Just checked on them this morning and it looks like everything went great! Nothing but happy clucking mommas in a big hen pile with chicks climbing all over and under them. I didn't dig around to check on the chicks in depth, but I didn't see any dead ones kicked out of the boxes and the ones I saw peeking out of the broodys' feathers looked perky and content.

My non broody has carved out her own nest spot in the coop, which is sliiiiightly worrisome. Really hope the chicks aren't tipping her over into wanting her own, LOL!

Roo keeps going up to check on everyone and coming back out to talk to me about it.