Growing my little flock

[DonyaQuick]

Having chaos with the smoke blowing down from Canada...turned soupy yesterday very quickly and had to bring all birds inside. Main flock was basically marauding around the whole downstairs and the beans went to the spare room they know well from the winter...which unfortunately has a bed in it now so they got to jump all over that. Everyone spent the night indoors, main flock in my dog's crate and beans in a makeshift playpen thing.

Kind of mad I trusted the air quality report at dawn though. It obviously is not measured nearby. Should have opened the door and used my nose and I could've given them all an exycouple hours of our time. It rained and is foggy, no smoke smell anymore, no eye irritation like I was getting yesterday. They're all out for now and I will just have to be watchful. There is a bad cloud looming on the map. May have to rush evoin again but for now I think stress of weird situowas outweighing stress of air quality for my adult birds.

Squishy and babies have been inside the whole time and will not be going out of course.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Well...it's panic mode now.

While the chickens were outside and the air was tolerable this morning, my husband and I built an 8x8ft indoor chicken fort to prepare for the cloud of even worse stuff that was headed our way according to the maps. The chickens are all indoors again. The new round of smoke that was headed in is definitely here now and it's awful - way worse than yesterday. The wild birds have all gone quiet again; everyone in the area who can put their poultry/livestock inside has done so I think because the dead silence out there is honestly kind of spooky. Normally I would hear horses, other peoples' flocks, cows, geese, etc. Air quality indoors is staying a lot better than outside.

The emergency chicken fort is made from 4 panels of 4'x8' OSB taken from a stack of panels we had saved for redoing the interior of the shed-to-coop conversion. Very lucky we had those just sitting around and that we hadn't used them yet. 4ft is high enough the chickens have not been interested in jumping. 8x8 is big enough for 7 birds to be ok for a potentially long haul with this if the winds don't change. Some 2x4s are at the corners for stability, all nailgunned together except for one corner left open slightly so I reach in if needed (covered with the blue blanket so they don't sneak out). Has food, water, and a carrier they can use as a nest box. I do not have enough shavings but what I dumped in there will have to do for now.

The Beans are in the dog's crate now. Not a great size...but safer for them than being outdoors right now and they have food, water, and some clean shavings. Also better than the emergency play pen panel things I had slapped together for them yesterday. Didn't have a nest box...can't see it in the pic but have a small wooden crate flipped on its side to see if Coco Bean will use that.

 

[Iluveggers]

We had it bad yesterday but today seems slightly better. I’m hoping this clears up soon. I couldn’t breathe when waiting with the kids being picked up at school.

 

[DonyaQuick]

We had it bad yesterday but today seems slightly better. I’m hoping this clears up soon. I couldn’t breathe when waiting with the kids being picked up at school.

I've never been so glad for rain - it makes a big difference to the breathability. From the maps I was just looking at it looks like it should improve across NY at this point. Fingers crossed that it does.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Air is good again, everyone is back outside full time.

Mr. Vanilla Bean in fine form, now that the sky is going blue again.

And having a friendly broody is really a tremendous cheat for making friendly chicks. Only problem is they're in my home office so I could monitor the hatch and they're getting bouncy when they hear me talking during video call meetings lol.

None of my photos seem to pick it up but all 4 chicks are distinctly colored.

• Mottled white and yellow (there's quite a bit of yellow)
• Mostly white with just a touch of yellow on the head
• Similar to the above but with gray bands on the wings
• Light brown

Very interested to see how these colors turn out since I thought having the dominant white trait in the mix would basically cause me to have all white chicks with the occasional penguin (how Monster started out). The tan/light brown one was a pretty big surprise. The brown one isn't the color that my buff chicks were either; it's more red than that.

 

[DonyaQuick]

First outdoor day for Squishy and her babies with the chick tractor. Monster was very happy to see them. Very polite too. The two Chungus chicks may well be his.

Monster just wanted to say hi to everyone, but his little happy noises were not reciprocated by Squishy lol.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Good thing I didn't jump straight to any color-based names for this batch...the mottled white and yellow chick's feathers are coming in pretty white and the very white chick's feathers are coming in more of a cream color. Neither one of those two will hold still for a clear photo.

My husband insists little reddish brown chick has to be a cockerel just based on what a little fireball it is. It actually tried to fight my hand over a scrap of paper I didn't want it to have lol.

Meanwhile little gray wing chick likes to sit in my hand a lot.

 

[DonyaQuick]

First proper dust bath for the babies today.

My husband still thinks the brown one is a cockerel. I'm not so sure. My money is currently on gray wings and the solid cream colored one at the moment. I'm getting cockerel comb vibes from those two even though it's very subtle and they're only two weeks old, so of course too young to know anything for sure yet.

My current parentage hypotheses:

• Brown = Dimple x Junior. Lower legs are short which is a Dimple trait.
• Solid cream color = Dimple x Junior. Has a funny voice, another Dimple trait.
• Yellow head = Chungus baby. Not sure of the dad but it totally has Chungus's personality.
• Gray wings = Chungus x Monster. I'm pretty sure this one was last out and that was a Chungus egg. Personality is just like Monster so far. It wanders off from the group to do it's own thing a LOT. I had to really keep an eye on Monster for that reason.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Oh I do think I've got a tiny little Chungus Monster cockerel I'm noticing he's got a very wide head, which is a Monster thing. Even if I'm wrong about the gender I'm sure it's got to be a Monster chick. That makes me very happy that I've got at least one from him.

So assuming either my husband or I are right (or both...that'd be a lota boys lol) then I'll be doing a bachelor flock. Assuming at least 2 boys then I need to get some extra pullets once the current babies are integrated enough for me to rotate a new broody into the house even if the chicks still have to sleep in the house too for a bit. I don't think I'll have any shortage of broodies...Dimple & Scruffy had a broody fight today, which is something I've never seen before; two big turkey chickens furiously chest bumping each other. They're driving Junior nuts.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Monster: hug time.
Me (sitting down): ok, come up here.
Monster: boot hug.
Me: no, come up here.
Monster: *peck* BOOT HUG
Me: *sigh* fine, boot hug