My Flock (Wyandottes)

[aquila]

We have 8 new baby American Chinchilla bunnies as of yesterday

I made another thread for more general stories and pictures from our farm that have less to do with the chickens, so if you want to see more pictures as the rabbit kittens grow and other things like that, you may want to check it out.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/our-farm-stories-and-pictures.1239741/

 

[aquila]

In other news, Pebble is no longer broody in the slightest. She spent one night in the wire cage, which really stressed her out - the other hens seemed worried for her, too. She paced back and forth until it was dark enough that she had to sleep, and when I let her out in the morning I noticed that her comb was bloody, probably from having her head right at the wire while pacing.

I have been locking the hens out of the coop during the day so that the chicks can come out of their introduction box and explore, so Pebble spent all of the next day out with the flock as usual. She was still proofing up and making that broody clucking sound occasionally, but not as much as she had been every day for the last few weeks, and she wasn't obsessively trying to sneak into the coop. I decided not to put her in the cage again, and not only blocked off "her" nest box but every single one in the coop (they do have a couple laying spots in our machine shed but don't have access to that at night) to try and force her to roost with the others.

That night she did eventually go to the roost, although there was a lot more drama and fuss than usual since she had not tried to roost with them since going broody. But she spent the night with the flock and the next day, there was almost no trace of that broody vocalization or behavior. The day after that, she seemed back to her normal self, although she is definitely the rock bottom of the pecking order for now.

So the verdict on the wire cage: it worked to break an extremely broody hen but I don't like the method. It's extremely stressful on them, and it has the potential for the caged hen to self-harm if they pace, and next time I will try another method of breaking my broodies, or get eggs for them to sit on from ebay or something.

 

[stuckinthecity]

Wait hold up did you just pull names for your birds from two of my favorite shows ever? Which I'm actually watching rn...lol Merlin...
You have a beautiful flock and set up!! I want your gold laced wyandottes.
These are my two. Sisters. One broody atm.

 

[aquila]

Well I haven't been very active on this forum for a couple of years (!) but I decided to update this thread rather than making a new one. So hello again!

Our flock has been humming along during this time and doing quite well. My goals with them have remained similar to when we started but evolved, too. I try to maintain a good laying, smart foraging free range flock who can sustain their numbers (1-2 roosters to 12-18 hens) and have a mostly dual-purpose body type with good hardiness. They are still mostly 'dottes and some of our originals still remain, but there have been some new additions and I look forward to developing our farm's own colorful diverse 'barnyard mix'. Currently we sit at 12 hens, two roos, two 'cliques' and hope to add a handful of new hens to the mix this spring.

I'll update with more stories and pictures to come, but here are some of our hens and our two roos today - GLR Percy and our new barred boy Lancelot, 1 year old buff orpington hen and blue-laced red wyandottes

 

[aquila]

Our original GLW rooster, Arthur eventually grew aggressive towards me and was rehomed to a nearby farm with an owner who is a much larger and imposing person than I am. As he had never been aggressive toward Alex or guests, we were hopeful it was a good choice for him. We hatched quite a few chicks from him, raised by our hens and ended up keeping two of his sons, neither of which we've had any issues with so far. I believe that Arthur being raised by people, and having never met another rooster, contributed to his later misplaced aggression.

We have two current roos. Percy (GLW) is one of our first Rooster, Arthur's sons - we kept two who seemed to have good temperaments and worked well as a pair, but lost one a couple of months ago to his duties as flock guardian, and were planning to get or raise another this spring. The second, a young barred roo simply showed up one morning a couple of weeks ago now. I think I'd been hearing him for a few days calling from the hedgerow that runs from the road between several properties. He either wandered here from a neighbor's flock or was dropped off by someone. It was good timing, even if he's a bit of an uninvited guest.

He's been very good with the hens and has reached a truce with the other rooster, so I'm hoping he works out. He showed signs of rushing up behind me once, but I shut that down and since then I've seen him start & then decide against rushing me. I suppose time will tell, but I'm hoping he works out as new addition to our flock.

 

[cackleberryandco]

I can't wait to hear more about how your flock has turned out!!!

 

[aquila]

I can't wait to hear more about how your flock has turned out!!!

Thank you, I'm happy to hear you liked reading about them!

 

[aquila]

It's been a quite a while! Here are some highlights of our flock's progress and drama so far. We are trending toward more of a mixed flock but still heavy on the wyandottes (get it, because they're a heavy chicken)

Percy was lost in his third year to ongoing issues with bumblefoot despite treatments. He was a very large rooster, the only chicken we've ever had suffer from this so far, I was sorry for him going through that and sad to see him go out of his prime so fast as he was beautiful and had a great temperament with me, the other ladies and other rooster. But we put him down peacefully once he started to have trouble getting around well.

The little barred roo was always very high-strung, overly anxious too my liking, with a rough wheezy-sounding crow and beginning to show signs of aggression being the sole rooster of the flock. So when my friend offered me one of Arthur's grandsons from one of our extra roosters who'd been crossed into her flock, I accepted this new alternative happily and they dropped him off that evening. He is some barnyard-mix of a potentially impure gold wyandotte rooster over one of her barred or black hens resulting in a single-barred gene rooster. He looks much like a black sex link rooster but on unusually tall light grey legs, with a rose comb. we haven't named him yet either. He is a far more fitting replacement for Percy, though, in type and temperament.

He took to the hens right away and they to him, his vocalizations are much more like the rest of our flock and he is a big, sweet boy with dark, messy barring. The little barred rooster tried with all his might the next day to defend his status and lost every fight to this new rooster but just kept coming back for more until he was winded and wheezing and too exhausted to continue each time. The bigger guy would leave him alone as long as he kept a little distance but he couldn't take a hint. For several days, he'd try, finally accepting a peripheral role with begrudging exhaustion only to become our first (and so far only ) casualty to a coyote while free ranging a few days later.

This may seem callous, but our roosters play an important role in our free range flock and he at least went out doing his job. Our losses have been very low for our area and I attribute that to having good cover, having other deterrents present on our land, keeping roosters who are calm but keep a good eye out, and letting our chickens free range naturally as much as possible from an early age to develop their instincts. Losing a second-rate rooster is far better than losing any hens or a top roo, and having a rooster or two really helps our girls live more secure free-range lives.

We still have Pebble and Stripe of our first wyandotte ladies at 6 years old now, with some others being shuffled to other flocks over the years. A number have gone to friends and family and its always fun to cross their descendants back into our flock with new genetics. We gained a lone ameraucauna hen from a family member who lost their whole flock in one night, save for her. She is a little survivor who lays a nice large blue egg reliably over our hot summer days, and has convinced me to add more of this breed, or easter eggers, into our flock to gain some of their traits in the next year or two.

We did have one of her eggs under our currently broody hen, Pebble's daughter and and the hen who raised Percy, four year old Mamacita. She didn't hatch the blue egg but is raising for us two mostly black chicks from our flock and four Wellsummer chicks that I swapped hatching eggs for. The black chicks look to be a male and female if their head spot and lack of are anything to judge by, but their other markings and features already have me very curious to see how they grow out. They're a result of our new rooster over our flock of wyandottes and one buff orpington. One chick looks to have a rose comb and the other a single comb so I think that one is likely to be from the buff. She is our rooster's favorite, and while our 'dottes throw the occasional single or pea comb its not very common. We had only one silver wyandotte, Arwen, with a single comb in the flock when I gathered the hatching eggs, as another candidate. I'd have liked to hatch a few more of ours, but I'm still very excited to see how these little ones turn out! Of course they're likely to be mostly black or get some incomplete barring, but they have such a mystery mix going into them. It's already a lot of fun to study the differences in their markings, beak colors, etc.

I will have to share some pictures, and other stories, like how Scarface and Mamacita got their names another time. I think that's all for tonight!

 

[aquila]

It has been a year since the last update? Haha

The wellsummers all grew up to lay strong beautiful terracotta-colored, chocolate-speckled eggs. They're very hard to tell apart so they are simply named the Wellsummer Girls and That Girl. They are also in the habit of laying much later in the day than any of the other hens. They are pretty, very classic looking farm hens but they are the flightiest, most easily spooked birds I have ever owned. I'm hoping that will be a good survival trait but there is a point where it might be too much. There is one that still panics every morning without fail when I come to let the flock out of the coop, it is routine at this point. She's That Girl.

Pebble passed at 6 years of age. I gave away a couple buff orps to my friend who wanted some docile chickens, and we lost one to a raccoon who managed to get into the coop. Our oldest hens now are gold and silver Wyandottes: Arwen, Silver, Mamacita, Scarface, and White-dot who are all 5 or 6 years old. Only Arwen has kept her original name.

White-dot, one of our older GLWs is currently raising a clutch of 5: two black chicks from our mixes and three "Ameraucanas" from the feed store. These are another breed from the list of ones I really wanted to own, and the last one that is easily available. I would have liked a couple more but they sold so quickly, I got the last three available.
Years ago I had Ameraucanas that I showed and had the most lovely wheaten rooster, which all others must inevitably be measured against, so I'd still like to get a 'cauna roo again at some point. But it seems our heir will be another barnyard mix for now!

Last year's little black hen grew up a little on the small side but active, smart, calm and I look forward to some more of these barnyard mixes of ours.

Our rooster is still the one from our Wyandotte lines mixed with my friend's flock, and he is a messy but handsome silver guy with some color leakage and very nice behaviors. I call him Long John, which a pretty disreputable name for such a nice roo. Over most of our flock he throws auto sexing black chicks (the boys have spots on their heads) so its very easy to sort them, but so far we haven't hatched out many.

Trying to keep the chicken math under control, we have 12 hens + 1 rooster and of the chicks, 1 little cockerel and 4 pullets. I do think I need more GLW soon. They are my favorites and the best broody mamas in our flock.

 

[aquila]