Illinois...

[Faraday40]

Went outside for some needed chicken therapy today. (After preparing to attend a party, my kids got sick, so we had to cancel.) I took my camera with me & got some decent pics.
Brick was looking especially handsome by the setting sun.
.

To all of Brick's Loyal Fan Club:


Brick & Muppet (I laugh because even SHE's bigger than him.)

Muppet

Of course our orig Mr Wonderful also looked good


Little Cookie looking innocent

The other little orp who always standing on my boots. (Oopsie- my mauve who grew out white feathers)


The "cool, hip crowd"

Lady Godiva (Choc orp)




Our Barnyard mix & camera hog. She usually just stands there making all sorts of noises until I give her some attention & take her pic.

 

[carolbiggs1965]

Hello everyone. We lost a Rhode island red pullet last night . We were so sad. But the rest are doing well. My husband is as excited as I am raising chickens. We are building a unique chicken coop.its a old wagon coop.

 

[ChicagoClucker]

Went out this morning and saw 6 ROBINS in my front tree! Could look at this in 3 different ways.
1) Hope it is a fantastic sign of an early spring
2) Worried because global warming is cause for an early spring.
3) Or the robins got the wrong memo.

Was going to make the 3rd a political joke, but playing it safe on this forum.

 

[Molpet]

Hello everyone. We lost a Rhode island red pullet last night

. We were so sad. But the rest are doing well. My husband is as excited as I am raising chickens. We are building a unique chicken coop.its a old wagon coop.

so sorry for your loss ... what happened to her?

 

[Faraday40]

Went out this morning and saw 6 ROBINS in my front tree! Could look at this in 3 different ways.
1) Hope it is a fantastic sign of an early spring
2) Worried because global warming is cause for an early spring.
3) Or the robins got the wrong memo.

Was going to make the 3rd a political joke, but playing it safe on this forum.

Hoping for #1.

My roos also think it's spring & were having some minor spats this morning. Moose made a hen squawk which made Brick run to defend her honor. I broke them up a few times by picking one up, but Moose was very upset at Brick for scolding him. They kept getting back to it as soon as my back was turned. Even Dummy broke them up - neither boy wanted to upset Mr Dummypants. The flock was back to normal before lunch & I saw no scratch marks.

The peacemaker:

 

[ChicagoClucker]

Wish I had Mr. Dummy pants here. McDreamy( Black Orp) keep bullying Mr. Wonderful (Silver Orp). I need to set up the breeding coop ASAP. I have noticed when I give them their treats before lock up, Mr. Wonderful runs into the coop, just to stay away from McDreamy. There are 16 hens, MrDreamy needs to learn how to share.


Mr. Wonderful, the sweetheart.




McDreamy, the mean conqueror. My husband calls them both turkeys cause they are so big.

 

[chickendreams24]

Hello everyone. We lost a Rhode island red pullet last night . We were so sad. But the rest are doing well. My husband is as excited as I am raising chickens. We are building a unique chicken coop.its a old wagon coop.

Oh no! So sorry to hear about your lost RIR pullet. What other chicks do you have left? Can't wait to see pics of your coop build.

Went out this morning and saw 6 ROBINS in my front tree! Could look at this in 3 different ways. 1) Hope it is a fantastic sign of an early spring 2) Worried because global warming is cause for an early spring. 3) Or the robins got the wrong memo. Was going to make the 3rd a political joke, but playing it safe on this forum.

There's an old farmer saying that I find to be pretty close to true usually. I forget right now the exact saying but basically snow will fall on a robin's wings three times before spring.

so sorry for your loss ... what happened to her?

X2

Hoping for #1. My roos also think it's spring & were having some minor spats this morning. Moose made a hen squawk which made Brick run to defend her honor. I broke them up a few times by picking one up, but Moose was very upset at Brick for scolding him. They kept getting back to it as soon as my back was turned. Even Dummy broke them up - neither boy wanted to upset Mr Dummypants. The flock was back to normal before lunch & I saw no scratch marks. The peacemaker:

Sorry you were having problems today. Glad Dummy was keeping things under control. Our flock was out today with this nice weather, no fox sightings since I shot at it. They loved it! It's been 2-3 weeks since I had them out for more than a couple of supervised hours. While I hate locking them up I wanted to be sure no one else was lost. Long weekend here. We didn't get around to processing any cockerals but we did get two of our four spare male quail done. Leaving us with 3 males and 1 female. We will be doing the other two males possibly tomorrow. They were being way too rough on the one female so it's better this way. Sorry if this offends anyone. While we do love our birds tremendously we just can't keep all of the spare males we get and hatch. We therefore decide to give them a wonderful life. Longer and better than any commercially grown birds. In return they protect our flock until they become too rough for the girls, they are then separated to finish growing, and then give us wonderful meat. With today's mild weather and lengthening days DH2B and I processed two cockerals tonight when he got home from work, before we made dinner. We snapped some photos of the birds beforehand for @Faraday40 and @Junibutt as the two boys we did tonight were the first of the orp/legbar mixes. They had wonderful lives but have recently been bullying a few of the other cockerals in the grow out. This was the reason we decided to do them tonight. Pictures will be posted later as they are on DH2B's phone BC mine is still not working. We will be continuing to do birds as the weather allows and hope to be done with the birds that are ready by the end of the weekend. Been a long day guarding the flock and processing the cockerals. Even though i know its what's best for our flock its still hard. Now it's time for chilli. Oh one other thing we will be setting the incubator tonight for some of the quail and chicken eggs we've been collecting as a test hatch. As soon as the cockerals are cleared out we will be getting the breeding groups ready ASAP.

 

[Faraday40]

BTW @Junibutt
How do you think Brick & Godiva look?
I'm thinking of putting some eggs into the incubator next weekend. Definitely some Oopsie eggs. Are there any others you think may make some pretty matches?


Brick was looking especially handsome by the setting sun.
.

To all of Brick's Loyal Fan Club:


Brick & Muppet (I laugh because even SHE's bigger than him.)

Muppet

Of course our orig Mr Wonderful also looked good


Little Cookie looking innocent. Don't let her adorable face fool you. She can hold her own against any of our giant orps.

The other little orp who always standing on my boots. (Oopsie- my mauve who grew out white feathers)


The "cool, hip crowd"

Lady Godiva (Choc orp)




Our Barnyard mix & camera hog. She usually just stands there making all sorts of noises until I give her some attention & take her pic.

 

[Faraday40]

BTW- Does anyone know of someone in the chicago/suburbs or N. IL area that has fertile silkie hatching eggs?

 

[ChicagoClucker]

@Junibutt Posting this article for you. I guess quite a few of the long ear owls have moved into the city this winter.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-owl-irruption-0212-20170207-story.html