Growing my little flock

[DonyaQuick]

Wait a minute...does Coco Bean have some kind of weird mini-beard going on?? It's only recently that she's done having a neck full of pin feathers and she's so wiggly I basically never get a good look at that part of her. She's got a bunch of extra under-neck floof that my other hens definitely don't have.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Was supposed to be -8F last night. Woke up to -17F at dawn. Polar vortex? I've quit putting much stock in weather forecasting for this area. Yesterday I could literally look out of one window in my kitchen to see sun and clear blue sky, then turn my head to look out the other window and see active blizzarding going on. Apparently I live in some kind of portal between good and bad weather.

Everyone is ok. Squishy and the rooster boys have some purple on their comb tips (inevitable in this climate for large-combed birds) and Junior somehow got a little purple strip on one wattle but not the other. Everyone seems happy though.

Also...bean time.

 

[DonyaQuick]

It's starting to warm up. The Beans have been out while I've been doing some work on their enclosure. They are so imprinted on me they just follow me everywhere, so I don't seem to have to worry about them wandering off. If I go back to the house to get something, they follow me right back in, and then out again. They're going to be out 24/7 very soon, which is long overdue given that Coco Bean is 6lbs already.

And then there's Monster. One of this boy's quirks is that he seems able to remember that something interesting happened hours or even days earlier, and then at the first opportunity he just up and walks off by himself to go check it out. For example: yesterday my husband was removing barbed wire he found in the ground just past the forest edge. It's a good distance from the coop, but Monster could just see that something was going on over there and I know he was watching. I kept the chickens in so they wouldn't be drawn over there. This morning I let the main flock out, turned my back for 5 seconds, and suddenly Monster was across the field, far away from the flock and having a look at the area my husband had been working on the previous day. He does this with very specific locations too often for it to be coincidence. Fortunately he's easily retrieved if I shake a treat bag.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Could very well be jinxing myself with this post, but I think Junior might be starting to calm down a bit. He still has periodic meltdowns, and it's still worse if it's snowing. But...he will also now regularly sit on my knee and have a nice little nap while being stroked like a cat. This is new, and it's good progress I think.

Of course, that polar vortex from a few weeks back definitely did not help make him calmer about snow and cold weather. You can see what it did to his comb. Overall not bad damage given the conditions of that one morning that caused it, but I think the affected areas are still icthy/painful. I think it will heal up well though.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Dingus and her daughters (Squishy & Scruffy): "what what what what what???!!!"
Monster: "mmmm strawberrynomnom"

 

[DonyaQuick]

oooooohhhhhh KAAAAYYYY well I have a new structural thing to do some planning for with my shed overhaul once I'm not living on planet Hoth anymore to avoid this issue in the future. I'm standing about a foot above ground level in this photo and that's the door to my run extension.

You may say "well you should have shoveled more!" except I did - I shoveled many times during the 48h snowfall because I was trying to avoid this...but it still happened because it compressed on its own at night when I was asleep, and now I basically can't get the shovel into it. I can get into the run extension; there is just enough room. I cannot get into the main coop / secure area, at least not as I normally would. Cleaning the coop today is going to be real interesting because I am too high to get in through the side door I usually use....and there is about 4ft of iced-up snow piled up against the back door of the coop that would normally be my other way in.

I guess the most important thing is everyone has food and water and I was able to get in to have morning coffee hug time despite the hip-high piles of snow all over the place.

I'm lucky though that the run extension door is built as it is. It isn't secure though...there is a big gap at the bottom which is part of what allows it to open in the first place. I guess maybe when I get my shed doors redone I just need a really high threshold...or I need to install a sturdy awning or something to protect the area right outside the door so it can't have this happen.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Dangit Junior! If you could've, y'know, just not...then I would've had all my windbreaks perfectly intact to put into storage and reuse next year.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Scruffy time! Beautiful day today.

Little Scruffy is very good and stays with me and/or my husband when it's just her out; same for her nearly identical-looking sister Squishy. The Beans also stay right with me when it's just them outside; I had them out for a few hours today while I was taking down windbreaks and doing some other yard work. Then I made the mistake of putting the Beans back in their enclosure and letting the entirety of everybody else out thinking it would be a similar peaceful experience. Nope! Good lord, I'm going to need a fence eventually LOL the original buff Orpington ladies just will not be sensible about where they hang out and they all marched straight off to the forbidden behind-the-house zone like they'd been plotting to do that all winter. Took me ages and lots of getting my knee pecked by Junior to get them all back round to the front (Junior seems to have some intuition about why it's not cool to hang out back there - too close to the forest edge). Apparently I have no treats on hand that are higher value than the forbidden behind-the-house grass.

 

[DonyaQuick]

How? How and why??

 

[DonyaQuick]

Ah yes, a nice, relaxing morning coffee time sitting with my flock Junior's butt in my face. I don't let him put his face in my face, so he tries to put the other end there instead.