Life With The Flock: Lacy Duckwing's Flock Thread

[Wyorp Rock]

Lovely!

 

[Bakbuk]

Really neat! Love your chickens. Definitely following.

 

[RoosterWhisperer]

@RoosterWhisperer @CrazyCochin @JustBabyMargo @Little Baby Bean @The Angry Hen

So following!
(that’s right, I’m back!)

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Aww poor Maisy. I know how uncomfortable chickens can get when they have to lay an egg! And they always seem to wait till the last second and then realize their favorite nesting box is occupied!

That's for sure! I've had two hens, Aundria and Princess, lay an egg seconds apart, IN THE SAME NESTING BOX, before. Silly birds.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

So yesterday evening, I saw a mangy fox coming from the direction of my backyard. Thankfully all my chickens were already cooped up for the night. I went around the coop and checked on my birds after I saw the fox, and nothing was even disturbed.

This is the second time I've seen this mangy fox. First time was during the middle of the day. It's getting me a little nervous, so my chickens aren't leaving their secured winter run today.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Hey Lacy! Sorry, I lost this thread. I guess I stopped getting alerts.
I just caught up with everything I missed.
Any updates on that fox? I hope your hens are ok!

No. Thankfully I haven't seen it since that last time.

Nevermind. A few minutes ago, one of my brothers came in and said he saw something at running around our neighbors that looked like a fox.
Thankfully, it wasn't near my coop or anything.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

It had snowed a dusting this morning. When I opened my coop to go inside, Aundria ran out into the snow in panic, which isn't her norm. Going inside, I quickly discovered it was because of Nightfall. Aundria is Nightfall's favorite because she's not mean to him. Maisy, and ESPECIALLY Penny, beats him up, and is always holding themselves like they're going to fight whenever they see him.

I had some trouble catching Aundria, but I eventually was able to get her and bring her back in. I had just brought in their waterer, so I picked up Nightfall so Aundria could drink in peace. To pass a little bit of time for Aundria, I brought Nightfall with me to get a bag of leaves that I had collected last fall.

Keeping Nightfall with me, I got the bag of leaves, opened it, then dumped it into their run. The leaves were a little frozen together, so I kicked them around to separate them; still holding Nightfall. Next, I got some dried meal worms that I got for Christmas, and scattered them over the leaves for something tasty for the hens to find, and a little encouragement to get them to scratch in the leaves. While the hens went for the meal worms, I let Nightfall eat some meal worms out of the container before letting him finally escape my arms.

I also took some pictures of my chickens with the new leaves with my phone:

 

[The-White-Elephant]

Update:

The past couple of days have been warmer out, which has been very good for my hen Rocky. I put a saddle on her to hopefully keep her warmer as well. The other day I finally got my heated waterer set up. Every morning I test the extension cord to make sure there is power. It still occasionally freezes, but today it didn't at all. I got a base for it, so I think that helps.

I had some issue with my flock's combs. Something was cutting them, but I couldn't find what it was. Recently, I had to remove a door from their coop to stop Jewels from roosting on it. Now, my flock's combs are looking much better. Some of them still have a couple of cuts, and Aundria looks like she had a fresh one, so I don't think I've completely fixed the problem, yet. Beth's comb is looking great and Penny's is almost there.

During the night and this morning, we got some snow, which made everything pretty. I took Jewels out to get some pictures of her because of that. Jewels typically does horrible with my camera, but winter is when she succeeds. It's because of her color. My camera can't pick her up properly because (I think) it thinks she's wood or leaves. Thus, never focusing on her. During the winter, my camera can focus on her well, and she takes really good pictures.

Today, I took Jewels over on an old logging trail by my house. I found a nice cut-down branch/tree and put her on it. She wasn't as happy about it as she was last year. She complained. That didn't stop me from taking pictures, so she kept trying to turn her fluffy bum-bum feathers towards me. That didn't completely work either. The sun was shining, so she also kept shutting her third eye-lid. She wasn't good at looking at the camera either, but the barking of a neighbor's dog gave me a couple of good shots with Jewels.

After I took pictures of Jewels, I hung out in my flock's winter run for a few minutes.
I took some pictures of my flock while I was in there, and a couple of videos. Beth stuck close by me like usual. Her and Shiloh ate snow off of my boots. Most of the flock tried having Quiet Hour, but Princess disturbed it a little by complaining, and Nightfall crowed a few times. They eventually took Quiet Hour a little while later.

Pictures of Jewels:
View attachment 2972449
Jewels' fluffy bum-bum feathers: View attachment 2972450
Jewels feet :View attachment 2972451
View attachment 2972453
View attachment 2972452
View attachment 2972454
Princess behind Nightfall:View attachment 2972457Quiet Hour: View attachment 2972465View attachment 2972467
If anything ever happens to my camera lens, I'll know who did it. :
View attachment 2972468
Adorable Nightfall:
View attachment 2972466

Video of Nightfall crowing:

Gorgeous! Jewels is beautiful!

 

[The-White-Elephant]

His father is an EE and his mother is a Rhode Island Blue. His crow might be masculine, but he's actually a coward. A couple of the hens even beat him up.

Interesting. Thanks for telling me about Rhode Island blues, never knew they were a thing.

At least he crows normally. I mean, just look at this! The 1st pic is how he starts, and the 2nd, how he continues.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

My Aundria got something very special today....

This morning, I brought Rocky inside to warm her up for a few minutes. I discovered the band on her saddle was almost done, for it was badly frayed. (That would have been as a result of Aundria, not Rocky. Aundria had it on just before it went on Rocky, and Aundria is the one who would have taken the time to undo the threads. ) I looked up new saddles up on Murray McMurray Hatchery, then Amazon. As I was complaining about the design of a certain saddle, and on how it wouldn't serve its purpose properly, my Mom suggested that we make one instead.
We searched around for a few minutes before we settled on some fabric that looked the strongest, though it wasn't what we wanted. Following the pattern of Rocky's saddle, my Mom was able to make a second saddle. This saddle, the first-ever one that my Mom has made, is for Aundria. She's wearing it now. As far as the old saddle, my Mom was able to put a new strap on it so Rocky can keep wearing hers. (I'm thinking that I'm seeing some new feathers starting on Rocky... Which will be good if that's the case.)

Aundria wearing the new "homemade by my Mom" saddle: