From egg to chick!

[ElfenLied89]

Not a bad life, I'd say. Hopefully once one of the cockerels you hatched steps up they can have another male. I'd be careful with letting Hook in. Especially if you'd like the hatch chicks in the future. He's crossbeaked

I am hoping they do. Especially Kithara. Lucky is the biggest out of the 4 roos though.

 

[tlcmurphy]

My babies are all still mellow. Occasional snippy peck here and there bc why not, but nothing bossy.

Neighbor's hen keeps hopping my fence. She IS bossy. I have to shoo her out my front yard bc she pecks at all my babies if they try to eat and she wants their food.

You have your neighbors hen and roo? Seems like a huge problem to me!

 

[2ndTink]

Side note: My chickens love broccoli

Mine won't touch it!

 

[ElfenLied89]

Mine won't touch it!

I figured they'd sniff it, peck it, and then be too stuck up to even try it. Nope. They fought over it. Pieces of fresh broccoli dangling in their mouths as others chased them around (even though there was plenty on the ground) lol

Edited to add.....spoiled butt chickens

 

[ElfenLied89]

You have your neighbors hen and roo? Seems like a huge problem to me!

She comes over randomly. Hook we tolerate bc he is part of the rooster that was here when we moved in. Used to be my neighbor's roo. He was called Colonel (by us). Well Hook, (hubs calls him CJ (Colonel Jr), is his son.

Colonel, (2nd and 3rd pic), used to watch my first set of babies when I'd put them in their little cage. He died, protecting my pullets (and brahma roo) from the dogs that got in my yard and tore open the metal cage. I never found his body. Only his feathers left behind. (First pic)

He was a booty to the younger kids though. He tried to rooster them too much. Wouldn't hurt them bad. Just nip at them if they ran or all that. He wouldn't mess with them if I was out there. Tried to tell him the little kids weren't chickens. He'd see the van and come running. Always walked the van home. Used to walk me up to the bus stop to get my younger kids. Little boss roo.

Never thought I would adore that ornery s.o.b. in the short time he was in our lives.

But yeah. Got off topic a bit lol. Hook is Colonel's son. Well. The RIR bit. His mom is a black silkie so I am told.

 

[tlcmurphy]

Colonel sounds like he was a good roo to your girls, just not your kids!

 

[ElfenLied89]

Colonel sounds like he was a good roo to your girls, just not your kids!

Yeah. He was ornery but good. He only nipped at my kids if they chased him which of course I told them not to do. And it was rare he did it. He never attacked me though. Just the smaller kids. I guess bc they were tiny? Idk what goes through a rooster's brain lol

 

[ElfenLied89]

Yall. I have a sinus headache today. ugh....


Anywho. Yall need to give me good facts to get hubs to let me have duckies. Anyone own ducks and chickens?

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

Wow, I haven't been here in a while!

Yall. I have a sinus headache today. ugh....


Anywho. Yall need to give me good facts to get hubs to let me have duckies. Anyone own ducks and chickens?

I hope you feel better!

I used to own ducks. Just for your information, if a drake mates a chicken hen then he will kill her by making her internally bleed out. I don't want to be negative but I always want to warn anyone of that because in my opinion, ducks and chickens should not be together. Anyways, with my experience on keeping ducks, they are enjoyable. They are cute, although more messy than chickens and will easily turn any part of your yard in a mud puddle. But their water resistance is a big plus, because they are much hardier than chickens. They don't mind being out in the rain, and mine always tolerated heat and cold like it was nothing, meanwhile the chickens were panting like they were dying when it's hot or either fluffed up and shivering when it is cold.

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

I wanted to share a random story with all of you. I found it quite hilarious. I know it is going to sound like a lie, but believe me because I saw it and it's real.

I have a Rhode Island Red Bantam named Ruby who I absolutely love and I take her out of the pen so she can have time to free-range under my supervision. She is the sweetest and I'm already training her to ride in the car and she is doing great. Anyways, I was watching her peck around on the ground and she found crumbs of some kind of unknown food that someone probably spilled. It was only few, but there were already ants near the crumbs, presumably eating up their snack and carrying the food back to their home. Ruby obviously wanted to eat both the ants and the crumbs, and she found an astonishing way to do both at the same time. I watched as Ruby picked up an ant and placed it on a crumb, and then she ate it－for some crumbs, she placed more than one ant. She kept doing this until there were no more crumbs to place the ants on. Certainly this was an example of how chickens can solve problems. I have joked that Ruby now has created a new recipe, the "ant sandwich."