New Chicks in the Flock (pic heavy!)

I was super-duper busy today building a new addition to the Guinea fowl pen, so I didn't get individual pictures of the little ones for their 8-week hatchday. I'll be sure to, though, for their 2-month hatch day on the 11th. :)


Ah, my sweet babies...

This morning, I woke up to light in my room. Apparently my alarm didn't go off. :he Even so, the darlings stayed on their perch until they saw that I was up. :love

august6wakingup.jpg


Biddy, Pogonip, Frou-Frou, Fancy and She Who doing their morning stuff. :lol:



Tonight wasn't so nice for them, though. Frou-frou was honking by 8:30, ready to go in. Frou-frou's voice has begun to crack and so, while she still peeps sometimes, she often honks if she tries to peep multiple syllables. I got the box and put her in, at which point she was content (because, of course, she was going up to the room she was used to, right?), but after I got the rest of the little ladies and carried them over to their area in the big-girl coop, she was not so happy. So I put them all in the little area with the hopes that they would roost on their own, and I got to listen to Frou-frou honk.

I went back later--of course they should be roosting by now!--only this is what I found:

notadjustingwell.jpg



And, of course, Frou-frou was still honking above the others' peeps. Frou-frou's 'unhappy face':

frou-frousunhappyface.jpg



Poor babies! I ended up putting them each on the perches by hand before I closed up the coop, nice and secure, for the night. I have a baby monitor in there (I set it up when we were having raccoon problems earlier this summer), and all I hear is big ol' Cubby, who is incapable of doing anything silently, including sleeping. The little ladies peep (or honk) occasionally, but I think they've settled in.

Ah, all seems well. I suppose this is good night...
 
Last edited:
It's been a few days, but not to worry--all is well!

Today, we were upgraded from our little 4x8 pen to a much larger area sectioned off from the big girls' run. (I'm estimating it's about 8x16.) The fence at the back of this pic is the wall of the run. I added all the chicken wire seen here to keep the big girls out of the little girls' space. I'm hoping that this will allow the little girls to lay claim to this section as their territory and make the transition to the big girl flock a bit easier on them.

aug10firstdayinbigenclosure.jpg


(That's SWSSU in the picture. Everyone else, as you'll see in another picture, was at my feet as I took it.)


That shelter that SWSSU is next to? Ugh, that's my handiwork. I found a few scraps of wood and nailed them together with a wood-framed plastic rabbit hutch tray to make a spot to set the feeder.

crappychickshelter.jpg



Here's most of the little girls, waiting for attention (and with quite an intense look from Fancy, I might add!).

waitingforattention.jpg



And SWSSU posing pretty by the ugly shelter.

swssuunderchickshelter.jpg



Frou-frou is as lovey-dovey as ever--but she is again refusing her existence as a chicken! She will just not perch. :/ Instead, she sits under the other chicks and gets pooped on all night.

frou-frouexpectingattention.jpg



Poor Pogonip poked her eye while flying around like a maniac in the new digs. (No swelling or redness, so I think she's gonna be fine.)

poorpogonip.jpg




In other news, the Biddy-Curly-Toe-friendly perches are now complete (as well as the Guinea enclosure I've mentioned a couple times now). Here are a couple of my Sebrights (the golden is Rose and the silver is Scooter) modelling on them:

biddy-friendlyperches.jpg


...And you can also see the dog crate that the chicks sleep in every night in this picture. :)


Tomorrow is their official 2-month hatchday! Which means, regrettably, that they will no longer be coming inside for any reason (they haven't since my last update, but I left the brooder up just in case). School starts for me in about a week, so I think I'll begin a once-a-month photo op regime like I did with last year's girls. I expect to be too busy to do anything more when the semester starts up.
 
Last edited:
The babies are 2 months old today!! (Beware: Many pictures await!)


Life is good in the new digs. The little ladies have been flying, scratching, exploring, and meeting their soon-to-be flock mates. Some tend to ignore them, but many others seek to assert their dominance--and they're far too big to risk the babies having any exposure to them without a fence between them!

I took lots of pictures with everyone looking their best!

Frou-frou was looking as fluffy as always.

frou-frou2moglam.jpg



Fancy climbed on me for a while, then demanded attention from me.

fancy2moattentiondemand.jpg



SWSSU was shy, hanging back and observing from a distance.

swssu2moshy.jpg



Surprise! Biddy-Bird wasn't expecting the camera to show up under the ugly shelter!

biddy2mosurprise.jpg



Pogonip posed between the two side-by-side cherry trees in the enclosure.

pogonip2mobetweenthetrees.jpg


(Her eye is doing just fine now, as I thought it would.)


Frou-frou was worn out in all the excitement...

frou-frou2morelaxing.jpg



...And so the little ones all took a (very) brief nap in the doghouse. (They're all in there, but only Pogonip and SWSSU are visible here.

2moallnappingindoghouse.jpg



After the nap, they posed for more pictures!

Frou-frou gave me her usual look.

frou-frou2mopose.jpg



Pogonip paused in mid-step.

pogonip2mopose.jpg



Biddy tried to be a ham for the camera.

biddy2mopose.jpg



SWSSU had to preen and get ready...

swssu2mopreen.jpg



...Before she could pose for her picture!

swssu2mopose.jpg



Fancy was ready for sure.

fancy2mopose.jpg



"I'm ready for my close-up!"

fancy2moupclose.jpg



I took just a few more pictures.

Pogonip was looking good!

pogonip2moallbetter.jpg



"Who're you calling fuzz-butt?!"

frou-frou2mofuzzbutt.jpg



Fancy, as always, was being a sweetheart.

fancy2mosweetie.jpg



And then I was done with the photo op. The girlies were so busy flying around that they didn't notice me leave. :rolleyes:

A few hours after this, the little ones were put in the coop for the night, where--brace yourself!--Frou-frou perched on her own!! :ya Everyone else, of course, had this part of the evening figured out already, so I didn't have to reach in and put them to perch this evening! Such good girls!!

...I forgot to take the brooder down after all. :oops: I'll have to do that tomorrow. G'night, folks!
 
How about a mid-month update?

School has started, I've finished one week of 16 total now. I didn't have much homework this week, so I got a larger area fenced off for the chookies, about triple what they had before. It's hard to tell from this pic, but the bottom edge is where the fence used to be on their original area:

newareaasofaug15.jpg


They are also drinking from a big-girl bucket now, which you may be able to see in this picture (it's dark red). Funny story there, I filled this bucket just to try out with them and they were afraid of it. I was trying to get Fancy or Frou-frou to see that it wasn't dangerous (and both of them flipped out when I put them near it), when Iddy Biddy walked up, gave it a stern look, and then drank from it without a problem. Now everyone's okay with the big-girl bucket and we don't use our little metal waterer so much anymore. :lol:


The little ones are hitting puberty and beginning the transition from peep to cluck. Frou-frou, of course, began honking long ago. Now I hear a honk from the others when they get excited.

Speaking of little honking Frou-frou...

frou-frouaug26.jpg


I brought her inside to visit and my 3-year-old niece happened to be in the room. Immediately, she came over to see the chicken and as she was petting Frou-frou, she looked up at me and said, "That's MY chicken." I told her that I didn't think it was, and she said, "I WUFF him!" (And thus began a long effort to convince her that Frou-frou was, in fact, a girl.)

So I stood there a while, talking to my parents, who were also in the room, and Frou-frou was in my arms, just a-honking away. So I replied to Frou-frou by saying, "Honk-honk, honk-honk-honk." And now my niece calls Frou-frou, 'Honk-honk'. :rolleyes:


Anyway, as I was taking pictures today of the new run, I got a silly look from Fancy that I just had to share, so I decided to get pictures of everyone else, too.

Here's Fancy giving me a silly look (her head got cut off a bit at the top :/ ) :

fancysillylookaug26.jpg


Fancy and her sister are starting to get some really pretty pencilled feathers in now!! :)



SWSSU gave me a nice pose:

swssuposeaug26.jpg


I have been working with SWSSU on her shyness. I try to pick her up every day and sit with her for a while. She's even met some of the older hens (because I can't sit down without obtaining a lap-chicken).



Pogonip decided not too long ago that she would shed her original, pointy tail feathers and grow in her roundy big-girl tail feathers. Isn't she so lovely?

pogonipaug26.jpg




And little Biddy-bird, the genius of the brood.

biddyaug26.jpg


Goodness, I was so impressed by her getting the bucket so quickly! Also, she's still smaller than the others, but it isn't as noticeable anymore unless she's next to the other four. :D
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom