Growing my little flock

[fuzzi]

It's actually surprisingly light compared to what I expected. I don't have a way to weigh it exactly, but it's certainly a lot easier to shift around than a standard size feed bag or even a single cinderblock. Probably a bit more than what it's like carrying a couple gallons of milk, so I'm guessing it's somewhere around 20-25lbs. I've already moved it quite some distance a few times no problem.

Looks like you mainly used 1x4s, that saves a lot of weight.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Man, I swear I've been cursed this year or something...Goober just got badly injured. If he survives, he'll lose an eye for sure. It wasn't a fight that did it, although Squeak did attack him right after because something weird and scary happened, but that wasn't what did the damage. Goober just missed a jump or something, I'm not sure exactly what action led up to it, but he fell and hit one side of his head really hard. It was just a freak accident. He's in a lot of pain but I don't think he broke anything. He can still walk around, eat from my hand, and is taking water by pipette, so I have hope he'll hang on, but he's in bad shape from the head injury.

I realized something though...with one eye, he doesn't actually move any differently than when he had two. So, that means his perception can't have changed that much. My prior experience with animals losing an eye is that they initially tend to go in circles because of the perceptual change. None of that with Goober. I always though the moved funny and was a klutz...now I realize he must never have had proper vision on the side he injured...which is probably why he was loud, trying to talk to me and other chickens because he couldn't see well...and which is why he had trouble jumping onto stuff...which is why he fell. With Dingus I was able to figure out she had weird vision issues a lot sooner and have always made her enclosures extra safe because of that. I clearly dropped the ball with Goober.

So...that kind of throws a wrench into my original bachelor flock plan. Even if bachelor flocks can work, I'm not sure how safe a one-eyed roo will be. I was going to fill that enclosure with all kinds of stuff to jump around on for enrichment so this feels kind of inevitable given I now know he had vision issues.

And...it makes me worry I have more than just egg-related reproductive issues to fight in my original flock's gene pool. Ziggy, my original roo, eventually turned out to have not-so-great vision on one side. Junior and Monster are fine...but Goob is Ziggy's grandson. I have no way to know if it's just dumb luck or something actually passed along that skipped a generation.

Ugh and I've got chicks coming this week...what a mess.

 

[2ndTink]

Oh my goodness! Poor Goober! I hope he will recover ok, very interesting about the possible genetic thing

Ooh, chicks! Exciting, but I understand the stress right now.

I hope things settle down a bit and you can enjoy your chickens again.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Oh my goodness! Poor Goober! I hope he will recover ok, very interesting about the possible genetic thing

Ooh, chicks! Exciting, but I understand the stress right now.

I hope things settle down a bit and you can enjoy your chickens again.

Well, I sure feel like a fool...the Goob still has both eyeballs! Not sure what horrific thing I was looking at that first day but it clearly was not his actual eyeball. Maybe that inner eyelid?? I have no idea but it was bad enough to convince me there couldn't have been an intact eye still there. Of course, having two eyes is not to say that saved eyeball does much though...but I don't think it ever did. Just vaguely light and dark probably. He also clearly bruised himself in various places on the side he fell on but he's already making good recovery progress.

Chicks shipped today. Time for endless nail-biting. Don't know whether to expect them tomorrow morning or the next day. My post-shipping-recovery brooder is set up and ready to go. Broody Scruffy is a floppy, growly sack of potatoes and just got moved to a fresh nest in the new integration box along with her beloved fake eggs - easy transfer.

 

[2ndTink]

Well, I sure feel like a fool...the Goob still has both eyeballs! Not sure what horrific thing I was looking at that first day but it clearly was not his actual eyeball. Maybe that inner eyelid?? I have no idea but it was bad enough to convince me there couldn't have been an intact eye still there. Of course, having two eyes is not to say that saved eyeball does much though...but I don't think it ever did. Just vaguely light and dark probably. He also clearly bruised himself in various places on the side he fell on but he's already making good recovery progress.

Chicks shipped today. Time for endless nail-biting. Don't know whether to expect them tomorrow morning or the next day. My post-shipping-recovery brooder is set up and ready to go. Broody Scruffy is a floppy, growly sack of potatoes and just got moved to a fresh nest in the new integration box along with her beloved fake eggs - easy transfer.

Phew! I'm glad he still has both eyes even if the one doesn't have good vision.

I hope Scruffy accepts the chicks! That's going to be so cute

 

[DonyaQuick]

Healthy chicks are here! They gave me one extra. All are eating and drinking well. Currently trying to stop Scruffy from hearing the peeping until after dark to do the egg-chick swap.

 

[2ndTink]

They made it! Phew good luck with the chick / egg swap tonight.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Well that was easy...just darkened the room in the late evening, take an egg, place a chick, and repeat. They stayed under her all night. And then this morning:

Having actual broody hatches to compare to, I can tell that her unbroody-ing state is just a bit out of sync with the chicks' development level. For example, she went through a very brief phase of trying to roll these weird wiggly hairy eggs back under her wings and being confused about why they kept coming back out lol. It's working out fine so far though! She's starting to feed them which was the first step towards getting more active for my other broody hens.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Very glad for Scruffy and the bean duo being easy right now. Those lot are going to be my stress relief. Main flock is peaceful but Dimple and Junior have somehow figured out I have chicks in the house and are being nutty. Both of them LOVE chicks, Junior especially.Seeing/hearing chicks makes him all super snuggly with me until the babies area actually there, and then he's kinda scary LOL. So I get to look forward in a few weeks to tiptoeing around him again. I plan on letting him raise the cochin chicks up to a good size in part in case I have an oops boy in there - I think Junior's by far my best roo for raising any accidental boys.

Meanwhile, Bachelor flock is a mess while their new enclosure is in progress. Not an unsolvable mess, but I realized when Goob got injured I needed to keep Squeak and Tengu see-but-no-touch unless supervised. They are doing great supervised, I just don't trust it to stay that way with a flock changeup. So, most of the time I've just got distributed bachelors rather than a proper flock. Squeak and Tengu are making good progress though, with Squeak especially starting to settle out of his spring crazies.

As for the Goob, I think I know why he had such a freak accident now vs any other time in the past. I thought Squeak was the late bloomer of the three, but Goober was the only one of the three to have never, ever shown proper interest in a hen. Like, a hen would come up to the old bachelor enclosure and he'd just stand there and giggle or totally ignore her while Squeak and Tengu would lose their spaghetti dancing about like idiots. Well, that changed today! Goober got some outdoor foraging time today while I did some chores, and he turned into a total mad man doing stupid stuff to try to impress Coco and other hens across a fence. Brand new Goober really! So now I've got a high testosterone klutz living in the house because he's still healing and still needs regular eye ointment and stuff. Very fun lol. He's still a sweet boy though. Just gotta get through "that phase" with him now.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Since the lip on the nest box was apparently too high for the chicks to traverse easily, that wadded up towel ramp I used this morning has been upgraded to stairs. These seem to work well.