My First Flock in Years

[Callender Girl]

I am so sorry you lost Bob; he had such potential and was already a handsome boy, in his own way.

 

[ihatedarkroast]

All chicks and mamas are back in with the rest of the flock, since the coop is more secure. We reinforced the wire bottom, and so far there have been no more chicken deaths. There was a little drama with reintroducing flock members, but it wasn't too bad.

Mainly, the Delaware chicken objects to sharing the space with babies. She will peck and chase them. Which causes the mama hens to descend upon her in wrath. The rooster, Beethoven, usually intervenes breaking up the fight between his harem members. He will occasionally shoo a chick away from the feed if he feels like it, but is highly tolerant of the chicks overall. I was worried the rooster would kill them. But it seems the Delaware hen was the culprit all along. (I did catch her trampling a newborn chick to death during the first hatching days. She was irritated that her favorite nesting box had a tiny inmate.)

Thankfully, these new skirmishes are brief and have resulted in no injuries. The chicks pop into the dog kennel or under the coop or under the doghouse half I stuck in there, if they need shelter. And the bully hens are content to let them escape once they aren't underfoot. Even funnier is when the mama hen clucks and calls the chicks to eat something tasty, and then in her zealous scratching, accidentally flings her own chicks in all directions with her feet.

I need to take some pictures. The chicks are getting these adorable tufts of feathers on their heads from their Polish breeding. They are a little tribe of Mohawks. Unfortunately, the dog seems to have thinned out the pullets from the baby chicks. The slowest, most gentle and quiet chicks were the ones who got eaten. I think I can identify at least 4 cockerels by their bold behaviors and spiky crests, but it may be 5. If I only get 3 new pullets from this hatch, it's still better than nothing.

Right now, it is cheaper to buy wine at the grocery store than a carton of eggs. I never thought I'd see the day!

There is a lady an hour away giving away a couple roosters as she lives in town where chickens are permitted but roosters are not. The choices are black maran or barred rock. I might try for a maran.

 

[Callender Girl]

It's good to hear that things are calming down (a bit!), and you have identified your bully.

Yeah, the price of eggs is crazy; I have a suggested donation of $1 a dozen, and lately people have been gladly giving more because they are so happy to get affordable eggs. One woman, who overpaid, rightly suggested that the cost of poultry feed is increasing, too.

I've had a Plymouth BR hen and a Midnight Majesty Maran hen, but never a rooster of each breed. It will be interesting to see, if you choose to get one, how one of the roosters will pan out. These days, more than even before, I would certainly quarantine any new flock members to make sure there's no disease introduction.

I really enjoyed the update on your flock; thanks for sharing it!

 

[ihatedarkroast]

It's good to hear that things are calming down (a bit!), and you have identified your bully.

Yeah, the price of eggs is crazy; I have a suggested donation of $1 a dozen, and lately people have been gladly giving more because they are so happy to get affordable eggs. One woman, who overpaid, rightly suggested that the cost of poultry feed is increasing, too.

I've had a Plymouth BR hen and a Midnight Majesty Maran hen, but never a rooster of each breed. It will be interesting to see, if you choose to get one, how one of the roosters will pan out. These days, more than even before, I would certainly quarantine any new flock members to make sure there's no disease introduction.

I really enjoyed the update on your flock; thanks for sharing it!

That is excellent advice! Unfortunately, the door broke on one of my kennels. So I have Beethoven isolated right now in my best cage. The new roo was dosed with ivermectrin before being handed over, so the lady said who gave him to us. He appears very healthy. I put him in with everyone else and he seems to be doing well/doing chicken-y things. He comes from a highschool girl's incubator egg hatch out. I'm not sure they have other chickens from before the hatch or not.

In other news, 2 chicks vanished. Not sure how. I plugged another hole in the coop fence where chicks could get out. I'm now wondering if it is rats or a snake coming in at night. I might need to start locking everyone in.

Pics of the new guy: We are calling him Jean-Luc after a certain French starship captain. He has a funny sounding raspy crow. So far he has won a couple dominance squabbles with the hen and pecked a couple chicks on the back, but doesn't seem to be mean.

 

[Callender Girl]

Jean-Luc is a great name; I'm sure it will endow him with wisdom and leadership abilities! I think he is a handsome boy.

Sorry to learn about the chicks, I would definitely lock everybody in, at least until you figure out what's going on.

Best wishes with solving your chick disappearances and with your new starship captain.

 

[ihatedarkroast]

Jean-Luc is a great name; I'm sure it will endow him with wisdom and leadership abilities! I think he is a handsome boy.

Sorry to learn about the chicks, I would definitely lock everybody in, at least until you figure out what's going on.

Best wishes with solving your chick disappearances and with your new starship captain.

lol. Thank you! Yeah, I think we are gonna set some rat traps out today. I know we have rats, so I think they are the culprits. It's possible the dog only killed 1 chick and the rest were done in by rats, actually. I see the rats sometimes running from the shed to the coop and raiding the scratch grain from the coop floor. It's another reason why we are building a new Fort Cluck. Hopefully when Jean-Luc grows up, he will be a decent mouser in addition to a flock daddy.

 

[Callender Girl]

Rats are so hard to eradicate -- mostly because they are so smart. Good luck!

 

[ihatedarkroast]

Just some pics of the gang from yesterday. It's so hard to get a good picture of the chicks to show their top knots. I also caught Jean-Luc in the act of servicing his hens, which they were not too thrilled about. I think it was more a dominance display than a romance display. He's not a bad rooster though. He will eat from your hand.

I guess I've come to the conclusion that my Ameraucanas are Easter Eggers thanks to this community. I got them from some local people who advertised on craigslist so they were not from breeders...probably originated at Rural King. I am curious to see if they produce olive egger offspring. Their egg color is pale blue. In any case, they have been the most alert and predator proof birds in my flock. They also lay almost every day. I could do a lot worse than these girls.

Today we cut the grass and weeded. I threw the tall weeds atop the coop to give some more shade and gave them grass and edible weeds inside with clumps of dirt to scratch. They are having a ball.

The last photo is a comparison of store bought chicken thighs vs our Polish rooster after he had rested in the fridge 3 days. I have never done this before so I was amazed by the darkness of the meat and the orange color of the fat. He only came out to 1 lb 14 oz hanging weight. We added some store bought leg quarters so we could complete a coq au vin recipe. It's marinating now. Tomorrow I will cook it. Monday we should eat it.

 

[ihatedarkroast]

Ok so the pics above are all new but for some reason they are inside a quote box and I can't figure out how to fix it. Finally got pics of the chicks. They are growing fast! My son is really enjoying feeding them now that we have a nice calm roo. Flock is really loving how short the hubs cut the grass so they can roam and forage. ...looking at the pics, I think Jean-luc doesn't have enough copper to be SOP. But he is supposed to be black marans not BCM but dont know tje diff.

Saturday we are heading to the beach with extended fam. I am taking our eggs. I hope everyone likes them.

 

[ihatedarkroast]

Welp, we're back from vacation. I'm pleased to report that no chickens died while we were away. The dog lost weight. lol. But, our housesitter is top notch! I'm very grateful to her. The dog was very poorly behaved too.

When we came back, I discovered the chicks had gotten quite a bit bigger. The differences between cockerels and pullets are becoming more pronounced. Definitely three cockerels out of the 6 chicks. Nobody got to free range while we were gone. So I let them out immediately. They tucked themselves inside a blackberry thicket. And then I couldn't get them out when I wanted to put them up! They are eating all the grass under the thorns and weeding it nicely. But they are also eating berries and bugs too, I'm sure.

The chicks have gotten quite fast at flying, and wily and unwilling to be caught. The mamas too. The rooster, Jean-Luc has gotten glossier and his hackle is growing in orange and his feathers are filling out nicely. He rushed me a couple times. But I'm not sure if it was for treats or a threat. He did not attack. Unfortuantely, I can see that he is a mahogany and not a true copper. I can't use him for breeding if I were to try to breed BCMs.

CHICKEN MATH WARNING....I went to Rural King yesterday to get Father's Day presents, Boston ferns, and discount beach chairs. I found they had French Wheaten Marans pullet chicks for $2.99! OMG I want them. I could keep the pullets and sell or get rid of some of my current cockerels and girls--well, the three cockerels. That would put me at 11 hens and 1 rooster--a solid dozen. They didn't have enough marans for the 6 chick minimum, but they also had prarie bluebell eggers I could use to make olive eggers, and barnevelder's which I think are very pretty.

Anyway, I also found a huge zucchini when I got home from the beach and a pile of filthy eggs. The zucchini I made into cheesy souffle (failed bread) and the eggs I used to make it turned out to be partly developed. Yeesh. I took them all out. It doesn't appear that any hens are broody, so they would be doomed to explode if left to partly develop and die, I guess.