Katie's Coop

[katiefloy]

I am going to use this space to document the progress of my flock, hatchings, and growth of my babies and hope to have some people follow along for advice (for/to me, definitely not an expert here) and just cute pictures.

Backstory:

So this is my second chicken year. 2020 was the year of the chick and we ordered 10 chicks from a hatchery that were mail delivered in April (along with every other person in the continental United States). We originally intended to have 3 chickens total. After researching and being told multiple times how delicate chicks are, I ordered a Delaware, a Barred Rock, 2 blue laced red wyandottes, and 6 Rare Breed female day old chicks, fully expecting to lose some. We ended up receiving the Delaware, Barred Rock, 2 blue laced red wyandottes, a Light Brahma, 2 partridge cochins, an egyptian fayoumi, a still unknown (possibly wellsummer), and a speckled sussex. At about 4 weeks we found homes for 4 and we only kept 6 (chicken math started early) - The Delaware (Olaf), the 2 blue laced red wyandotte (Princess Fluffy Butt and Blue, the light brahma (Guiny), one of the partridge cochins (Stuart), and the possible wellsummer (Red). It was so hard to send them away. I felt like I was sending my babies off to college or something.

As the summer progressed I discovered egg colors and decided I wanted some blue or green egg layers and a rooster to add to the flock. So we added a rooster, and 2 easter eggers (although one lays an olive egg, so maybe an olive egger?). The first rooster, an easter egger, started going after my 7 year old son and then he came after me, so we sent him back and looked for another rooster. We found the perfect gentlemen - a frizzled cochin x easter egger who is absolutely adorable and sweet. He isn't much for cuddles, but he is respectful and I LOVE the frizzle!!! I am hoping for frizzle easter egger babies (more on that later). When we introduced the new crew, Blue was not impressed. We tried the see, don't touch method; then put them in at night, but she still continued to go after them and they were starting to look pretty rough. So a couple weeks later I made the decision that she needed to find a new home and sent her to live with a bigger flock.

Things calmed down after that, unfortunately, we lost one of the Easter Eggers when she decided to jump the fence and hopped down right in front of our two dogs. I still might have saved her, if she had run under the greenhouse; but she ran around like the proverbial chicken with her head cutoff and then tried to run "through" the fence and got trapped. I'm sure I have cemented my neighbors opinion that I am crazy when they saw me chasing my dog in the backyard screaming like a lunatic to get my dead chicken back. I did retrieve her body and sat on the front porch and cuddled her for probably an hour before I finally let her go.

So that leaves us with the following flock as of Spring 2021:

Blue Laced Red Wyandotte - Princess Fluffy Butt
Light Brahma - Guiny
Delaware - Olaf
Partridge Cochin - Stuart
Wellsummer? - Red
Easter Egger - Josie
Frizzle Cochin x Easter Egger - Napoleon

 

[katiefloy]

And More Babies

Now we were just waiting for the rest of the babies to hatch. May 9, we found another baby peeking her head out from under mama. This time a yellow one, but not one of Josie's eggs, so I believe this one came from our Delaware - Olaf. And the morning of May 10 we found a fourth baby, this time a pretty gray one from Josie's eggs.

The first baby hatched was not very interested in all this waiting around and started putting mama through her paces early on. At first he stayed in the crate for the most part but running around her. After about a day he was through with that and started running around the outside of the crate. After the 4th egg hatched Josie went outside the crate with the her 4 babies and left the remaining four behind. Unfortunately, I could hear one of those eggs peeping, and it was Josie's egg.

 

[katiefloy]

First Brood Development

So I did candling a couple times during the brooding period, 7 days and 14 days. I discovered I reallyl suck at this. So, I noted what I thought I saw and left all eggs just in case. I discovered that I couldn't really see anything in the green eggs except the air sac. Taking pictures of the candled eggs actually helped me see more than I could with my bare eyes. I'm not sure why.

On the 7 day inspection I noted that 2 eggs looked like they might be unfertilized. These were Guiny's eggs and as she is a light brahma and our rooster is pretty small I think he just can't quite reach with her (although he sure does try). I couldn't see anything in 2 eggs (the olive eggs), and the others all seemed viable.

On the 14 day inspection I noted that the 2 I thought were unfertilized still appeared unviable, I still couldn't see anything in the 2 olive eggs, and the other eggs all seemed on track. I had my son help me take pictures of the eggs which I posted to a facebook chicken group for eggspert advice and they helped confirm my findings and were able to see more in the olive eggs than I could. Note To Self: Make sure egg # is in the picture to match the eggs with the pictures. Unfortunately I wasn't able to figure out which eggs in the pictures went with which egg in the nest. Findings were that all eggs appeared viable except the 2 brahma eggs. We even saw 2 of the babies move in the eggs, which was super cool.

 

[katiefloy]

Our First Broody!

Fast forward to April and our youngest girl, Josie, goes broody! Josie was the sweetest broody ever. I wasn't even sure if she was broody at first because she doesn't make the dinosaur noises at me. All she does is puffs up when you open the nesting box. On April 18 I gave her 8 eggs to sit on. 2 of hers (easy to tell since she lays green eggs), 2 of Guiny (the light brahma), and 4 others of different brown shades. In hindsight I wish I had put more of her eggs under her.

Josie was super dedicated. I had to take her off the nest once a day to make sure she pooped, ate, and drank. The first time I didn't realize that hens could hold eggs in their wings (Note To Self: Check under wings before pulling broody hens off the nest and check find legs/feet too for good measure). When I pulled her off the nest she had one in her wings and dropped it. Sadly it broke, so I replaced it with one laid that day.

After a week or so, she spent most of her time off the nest dust bathing, which should have been my first clue that there was a problem. I didn't realize there was a problem until shortly before hatch when I spotted something moving on her butt as I was collecting the other girls eggs from the boxes next to her. Ewwwww! Looks like chicken lice. Poor girl.

 

[katiefloy]

Bugs!!!

So back to the bug issue. I am still kind of freaking out about the bugs. I did see what looked like lice on Josie and she was easy to check since she wasn't leaving that nest unless I forced her off. The others were not interested in being checked for bugs, but I started to notice a couple bald spots (not explained by Napoleon's amorous attentions) that were hidden unless they moved just right . So now i had to order bug killer, which wouldn't arrive until after Josie's lockdown period, and figure out how to treat everyone and the coop with a hen sitting on eggs that were due to hatch in a couple days. After some discussion on my facebook chicken group I ended up ordering permethrin spray which kills bugs but not eggs (which I would receive before the 3 day lockdown - amazon to the rescue) and elector psp which would kill both eggs and bugs (which I unfortunately did not receive until after lockdown). I ended up pulling Josie off the day before her lockdown and sprayed her butt with the permethrin spray and cleaned out her nesting box and sprayed it before putting everything back in. I did check her for bugs when I was checking for eggs the next few days and didn't see them on her so I think it helped.

I also went in and sprayed all the chicken's butts that night with the permethrin, they weren't as tolerant of checking for bugs, so I just assume that it worked for them as well.

 

[katiefloy]

Lockdown and Babies

I am not sure if anyone did the math, but Josie started sitting on her eggs on 4/18. So her babies were due to hatch on 5/9 which this year was Mother's Day. How perfect! Josie continued to be a perfect mama for her eggs.

Josie was nesting in a box that was a foot or so off the ground, which obviously won't work when the babies hatch, so I ended up setting up a small run inside the big run with a crate for mama and babies to move to after they hatched (I had heard that some mama's will stop brooding if you move them). This limited the run space for the rest of the group, but since they are mostly free ranging right now, I wasn't too worried.

One of the ladies on the facebook group mentioned that I should keep an eye out prior to 21 days since some breeds hatch early. Sure enough we had 2 over achievers who both hatched on 5/8 and looked like twins (except one has feathered legs and one has clean legs). I was worried the babies might fall out of the nesting box, so I moved the babies, the remaining eggs, and mom into the crate and moved them to the small run area I had set up for them. Josie settled back down on her eggs and babies like nothing had changed. In the meantime I cleaned out the nesting box and the rest of the girls were pleased to have their favorite spot back.

Question on genetics, if anyone happens to know: My first thought was that the two overachievers were both from my cochin hen. However, both my cochin and the rooster have feathered legs. Could the clean legged baby come from that pairing?

 

[katiefloy]

More Babies Cont.

I didn't know what to do. I don't have an incubator (although I am now thinking I should probably get one). Strangely enough, another one of my girls (Princess Fluffy Butt) had decided to go broody (or maybe it is contagious like I heard). She had been thinking about it for a couple weeks, spending most of the day in the nesting box and screaming at me when I opened the boxes. When she wasn't in the box, she was all puffed up and growling at everyone. She even started doing this weird wing thing with her wings where she looked like an owl about to attack. It was like she had chicken PMS (is this a thing?) or something. She wasn't spending all night in the box and it wasn't every day (the chicken PMS was, just not the sitting in the box). She was just super ornery.

She decided to start sitting full time on May 10 (more on this later) and I gave her 6 eggs. After consulting with Facebook eggsperts again I decided to put the peeping egg under her and hope it hatched. The next day, May 11 we got a pip but still not hatch. May 12 she started to zip and I was so excited. This had worked! I was super anxious all day but started getting a really bad feeling that afternoon and I was stuck in a stupid meeting that was taking forever. As soon as the meeting was over I ran outside and knew it wasn't good when there wasn't any peeping. I lifted Princess up and the baby had hatched completely out. She was still attached to the egg with the equivalent of an umbilical cord (I guess) but her neck was floppy and she was dead. I was devastated. I'm not sure what happened, if Princess suffocated her or stepped on her breaking her neck. She would have been a completely yellow chick with feathered legs. No pictures of this one as it was too heartbreaking for me.

 

[katiefloy]

Chicken Math

So after my heartbreaking loss, I was looking through my facebook feed and someone close by was looking for a home for 2, 1-day old lavender laced orpingtons. I jumped on it and picked up both babies. My plan was to give them to Josie, but if she wouldn't take them I had a brooder I used last year for back up. I introduced both babies after she had taken her 4 into the crate for bedtime. She immediately welcomed them in. They seemed confused about what they should do and walked around her a few times. A couple of Josie's babies came out from under her to investigate the new comers and the newbies followed them under her for bedtime.

So Josie now has 6 babies. As they started moving around more and Josie started showing them how to scratch for food, I discovered that the crate was taking up too much room in the small run I had set up. Josie was accidentally throwing babies across the brooder when they got under her feet as she was scratching. In one instance she stepped on one after she threw it. The baby was OK, but I decided I needed to find a better solution. It would have been plenty big for just the babies, like I had last year. But with a full grown hen in there they needed more space. Another conundrum was what to do with the water. It keeps getting full of dirt as she is scratching around.

Solution ended up being using the original coop I had bought for my chicken keeping journey. This was the typical coop you can get at TSC that is grossly too small for the number of chickens they say it will hold. However, it is working pretty well for Josie and her babies. The babies have more room to get out of the way and have learned pretty quickly not to get under her feet.

I absolutely love watching Josie with her babies. It is so sweet. I can sit out there for hours watching the cute little fluff balls follow mama around and race each other to grab any treats she finds.

Question: The water is still an issue. If anyone has any ideas on what to do about this I would appreciate it. I have set it up in bricks in a corner which has helped a little bit. However, I can't put it any higher or the chicks wont' be able to get to it. I just go out every couple hours and check to see if I have to refill it. Thankfully I am teleworking, so can do that.

 

[katiefloy]

Beautiful babies!

Thanks! I can't wait to see if any of them frizzle.

 

[katiefloy]

Broody is Contagious

So I mentioned this in a prior post, but a 2nd girl, Princess Fluffy Butt, decided to go broody shortly before Josie's babies started hatching. Princess Fluffy Butt is the top hen of the group and she is a much more difficult broody than Josie was (Josie is bottom of the pecking order). She decided to fully commit to brooding on May 10 and I gave her 6 eggs to hatch. I will be doing my first candling May 17 to see if any are viable. I did try another one of Guiny's (light brahma) eggs just because I would love to see what a product between her and the frizzle rooster would look like, but I doubt it is viable. These eggs are due to hatch May 31.

I am very concerned about how Princess is going to do as a mother. I will have to keep a close eye on her hatch since the baby I gave to her to finish incubating died of mysterious circumstances in a previous post. I should start looking for a large box to use as a brooder in the unfortunate instance that I have to take the babies away.

I have noticed that the other girls are getting a little impatient with the rooster now that he only has the 4 of them to love on. I plan to add a few hens from these hatches to the flock to help spread the love out a little more. We did have 7 girls, which seemed a good number to keep everyone's feathers in good shape (figurative and literal). Several weeks after Clara committed suicide by dog I noticed that the feathers on the rest of the girls backs started getting a little worn. I have gotten aprons for his favorites, which I hope helps.

I have told my son (and myself) that we can only keep one or two hens, so we will need to find homes for all the other babies. It is so hard to send my babies off. I do have someone who really wants a frizzle rooster so has volunteered to take a rooster baby off my hands and since she had a fox raid her henhouse has said she can take any extra pullets as well.