Growing my little flock

[DonyaQuick]

All chicks are still acting normally. Fingers crossed it stays that way. No crop problems still for brown chick; crop empties just fine so the issue is elsewhere.

Digging into this situation a bit more, I have been thinking about the feed...

• For my very first set of pullets 2 years back I used Dumor chick starter and later the layer feed. Supply chain issues and old mill dates made me switch to a more locally produced all-flock feed when they were adults.
• My second round of chicks (hatched by Dimple last year) received the all-flock feed plus foraging.
• The Beans (late last year) received the all-flock feed and ate it pretty exclusively.
• This batch of chicks has had mostly Cluck & Co organic chick starter.

This year, about halfway through incubation there were local supply chain issues again. The local all-flock feed was out of stock for a bit and chick starter was largely sold out. I ended up getting a small bag of Cluck & Co organic chick starter as a backup option. Local feed supply got fixed right before hatch day, so I decided to offer both feeds. It turned out both Squishy and the chicks preferred the Cluck & Co almost immediately, so that's mostly what they've been eating. It seemed really good for mama Squishy; helped her get energy and weight back, and she's molting well growing a lot of new feathers. For about five days leading up to this, I stopped offering the local all-flock because it really looked to me like they were collectively just shoveling the all-flock onto the ground and turning it into bedding.

Not ready to blame Cluck & Co because it gets really good reviews and does seem to have done really well for Squishy, but it is actually a bit lower protein than the local all-flock - 18% vs 20%. From what I've read, that shouldn't really be a problem, but perhaps there were amplified protein issues with the foraging if brown chick isn't eating his bugs for whatever reason.

Could just be a lot of pontificating on nothing too. Still, I will go back to having both feeds available and will also keep giving them some scrambled egg regularly.

 

[DonyaQuick]

This bunch of chicks is a handful. I think I perhaps got by easy with the batch Dimple raised last year because Junior was the only obvious cockerel at the time and Monster was so shy and subdued I didn't believe he was a boy for ages. These babies, however...oi. 3 chaos balls and a...no nevermind it's 4 chaos balls even with one pullet.

• Goober (cockerel) has declared himself king of the cockerels, has already started yodeling, and if I don't keep an eye on him when they're out of the enclosure, he teleports off to god knows where on the top floor of the house. Any open door and he could be in there.
• Squeak (cockerel) now throws himself on the floor crying if anyone gives him a mean look but is apparently a relentless food thief. So...he steals food right out of another chick's mouth, eats it, and then cries when he gets chased.
• Brown chick (cockerel) is now called Tengu and alternates disagreeable screaming when I try to pick him up and flopping on his side wanting belly rubs.
• Meep (pullet) is the smallest but thinks it's funny to attack Squeak and Tengu.

Then there's the main flock thwarting the last stages of my integration attempts.

• Dimple, Chungus, Buddy, and Dingus are fine. Yay!
• Junior is being an excellent dad so far. He feeds the chicks, runs to them if they scream, and is teaching the cockerels to tidbit.
• Monster is...what can I say, he's actually a problematic weirdo. I suppose should have seen this coming. He will do something very normal like feed a little piece of food to the chicks and likes to be near them, but then when Monster is eating food he doesn't want to share, then it gets weird: he picks the chicks up and moves them away from his food. He gently grabs a bunch of back feathers, slowly lifts and moves them about 6 inches away while they're kicking and screaming. It's bizarre. He is also in immature "pretty lady come back!" mode with Squishy and ends up chasing her eventually if they're together long enough. Both weird interactions summon Junior, but he just ends up standing there like "what the..." and then comes and pecks my knee make get me to solve it.
• And finally, Scruffy is just completely throwing a wrench into the integration. She can't make up her mind about being broody. When not broody, she doesn't care one bit about the chicks but wants to fight to the death with Squishy. Nobody's gotten hurt but it's some of the most ridiculous hen fighting I've had to break up.

One good thing...chicks are big enough I feel comfortable letting them out without the chick tractor for a bit.

 

[DonyaQuick]

"You can't make a hen go broody"

I know, but I just tried it anyway, ok...and yeah, alright, nearly-broody Scruffy did not think that a large quantity of ceramic eggs appearing out of nowhere was worth sitting on, but she did think it was worth a scream of such magnitude that they probably heard all the way across town.

 

[DonyaQuick]

 

[DonyaQuick]

Junior may the only chicken I actually have to be cautious about as far as how I interact with him, but he is SOOOOO good with the chicks. Monster will feed them but I'm still worried by his inclination to pick them up and move them, so he won't be getting unsupervised direct contact with them for a while yet, and Vanilla Bean who has seen them across fencing just doesn't seem to know what they are (he dances for them). So it's really only my high strung nippy boy who is proper dad material. He feeds them and walks very carefully around them, actually much more carefully than mama Squishy who has been guilty of running them over a few times to get to food. Several times now I've seen the chicks respond to an alarm call by going and hiding behind daddy Junior rather than going to mama Squishy. Very interesting. This is a whole dynamic of things I have never seen before and it is very cool to watch.

 

[DonyaQuick]

I believe this image accurately represents the current dynamic among my 5-week-old chicks...three cockerels rumbling about being spazzy, and then right as I go "wait where's Meep"...

 

[DonyaQuick]

Second phase of integration complete...the four chicks can hang with all of the big boys and girls during the day when it's not stormy out. Mr. bitey butt Junior is actually the one who enabled this to happen so quickly. Squishy is done mothering them and went back to living with the adults 24/7 a few days ago, but Junior is still in dad mode. Hens chasing chicks get distracted with food or wing-herded away, and Mr. Monster actually gets slapped if he misbehaves around the chicks.

The flock will soon be upgrading to a 12x16ft coop with a similarly sized run. Don't know that the cockerels will be moving with them when that happens, since at that point they'll probably be big enough to introduce to Vanilla Bean and get the bachelor flock going (they do need to grow out a bit before that introduction though since Vanilla Bean clearly doesn't understand what chicks are).

 

[DonyaQuick]

Brooder baby olive egger pullets are coming along well. Assuming I do actually have pullets this should give me a good main flock ratio next year.

New pullets are starting to get names. This is Joker, aka Miss Why So Serious. I can't tell if it's just white coloration or an actual hatch incident scar I'm seeing, but the personality certainly fits.

I do have a runt in this batch. Not sure why exactly, but little Fuzzy here seemed to have a bit of a rough start and needed to have her butt cleaned quite a few times in the first few days. She's plenty active now but definitely the smallest.

Oh...and these are brooder babies instead of broody babies because I utterly bodged the introduction. Scruffy (Squishy's sister) has been broody for ages so I thought I'd try the midnight swap. As I was trying to move her to an indoor nest though, she heard these new little ones and went running off to find them...and then she basically un-broodied on the spot. Comb back up and everything within about 10min. Much like Chungus she seemed to go "Yay I did it! Ok those are yours to deal with now, bye!" so now I have a brooder plate in my already hot home office and occasionally have to do a zoom meeting with a chick or two on my lap.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Uh oh, nose hair removal service incoming...

 

[DonyaQuick]

And here we have Mr. Tengu, who at 7 weeks old has grown into a lovely...um...a lovely fluffy snake I guess.

Seriously though, this boy has the proportionally longest neck of any of my chickens. He's like a slinky...loops over the arm and just keeps dangling further.