Story time! Complete with chick tax at the end.
This has been an adventure. Early April will mark our first FULL YEAR with chickens. Chicken math hit us hard, and hubby built a massive coop and run. He also built a lovely Bantam coop! (We’ve got a temporary run and are working on leveling the forest around first before building a big run for them too!)
Needless to say, we had no plans for hatching any eggs this year. A: It’s getting cold and B: We were SURE that with all of our layers being relatively new outside of our original 8 hens (I mean, we’ve got June and August babies in our big coop!) that fertility/virility/all that would be less than stellar.
I fell on the ice about five weeks ago and hubby was handling all the chicken work for me because my knee was a mess. He and kiddo kept mentioning Oregano (buff orpington) was constantly on the nesting box but “no worries, she gets off at night.” Needless to say, she was not getting off the box at night. Dutifully she stayed despite her eggs being taken each day. I was fine to start back a week after (fourish weeks ago now) and indeed confirmed Oregano had dreams of motherhood. Now, we’ve never tried to break broodies as we had not had any before. We also have several local friends looking to expand their flocks. And I mean, incubators in the closet just means they need to be tested to be sure they’re still working, right?
So here I was, thinking if I put in 20 that we would be LUCKY if one even developed. Now, we do have a lot of roos, about 7, in our main flock. (Hen to roo ratio is about 10-15 to 1), and there’s never been a serious fight. So you’d think I would know better than to think so few would. I candled them and saw no development and put them in.
10 developed. Strongly! I had another four under Oregano. My fears were if none developed under her, we would be restarting her broody process and we didn’t want her on the nest longer than necessary. And oh boy, 2 under her were developing. We tried to move her and the box and let me tell you, that was beautifully unsuccessful. She abandoned her box to squawk and try to go back to the main flock. Then would panic and want the eggs, but not want away from the flock. So, we decided to just let her sit on the nest where everyone else was and mark the eggs.
You’d think smooth sailing from there, right? Well… HER nesting box became THE desired nesting box. She was there 24/7 so naturally, everyone else saw it as prime real estate. One egg was stepped on by a hen who is one of the clumsiest of the bunch, and the fourth never developed, leaving her with 2 eggs. Fast forward to the 4th. They’re due to hatch today, the 8th. There’s peeping coming from the computer room (where the incubators are)… FIVE days early, little Lucky hatched. Before they even went into lockdown! I say 5 because he was DRY when we found him. He was just relaxing in the egg turner, in the little divider. No complaints, just vibes. We still don’t know how he hatched so early. His egg was rather light - I would’ve seen development then I’m sure if there had been any. But regardless, the little early mystery arrived. I was worried if we put him with Oregano early, she would abandon the other eggs and the other incubator babies would be without a mom, so he was our designated cuddle buddy until today. He got to relax in his own private brooder but was frequently brought in to hang out, have snacks (chick crumble of course), and watch KDramas with me while resting on a warm sock filled with rice.
Now, you’d think THAT was the last round of chaos yes? No again.
I had the “brilliant” idea to take one of the six final developers when I was starting lockdown and put it under Oregano so she would have three eggs! I was tired, so I forgot to mark it. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this…
I pulled all the unmarked eggs from Oregano’s box and brought them inside. And onto the counter they went with our other collected eggs. That was two days ago. That night, our son insists he’s hearing chirping from the kitchen. I say it’s impossible. But sleuth he does, and hands me a CHIRPING EGG. Of course I was terrified I’d sentenced this egg to death with my forgetfulness. I was so distraught but popped it right back in the incubator.
And roll credits to yesterday… the 2 under Oregano hatched, and the other five eggs left in the incubator (#6 being early Lucky!) hatched as well. Even our little counter chick! This morning, I started to smuggle chicks outside in the chill in my hoodie pockets and slipped them under Oregano. Then I would after a while gently pull them all out to make sure she saw them and approved. Not a single complaint! She took in all eight extra chicks, even the older Lucky! (He’s in one of the pics below on top of Oregano). She tidbits for them, makes sure they’re under her, and seems to overall enjoy having her babies. She’s now in our little white coop, just her and the babies, and our Big Baby Bungalow (giant shed) will be completed tomorrow for us to move her and babies into so there’s lots of moving around room.
I’ll add more pics of all the babies tomorrow, but they’re all SO cute! Rocky is our main rooster (previously known as Big Man), a barred rock. We expected all the babies to look like him or similar, but we KNOW at least one that wasn’t (five toes - could only be from Grim, our Crazy Cackle Toppie, who has one boyfriend and that is Ranch, our Splash Polish roo).
Thank you for reading through my little slice of start-of-the-year chaos. I am overjoyed to welcome all eight of these sweeties into our flock, and so proud of Oregano for being a great first time mom!
“Where’s the TV?”
(Leftmost was our counter baby)
Li’l skunk stripe baby here is Grim’s - so 99% likely to be Splash’s baby too!
The full black baby has little fuzzy feet!
More pics to come tomorrow of course. But what they ALL are, is adorable.
This has been an adventure. Early April will mark our first FULL YEAR with chickens. Chicken math hit us hard, and hubby built a massive coop and run. He also built a lovely Bantam coop! (We’ve got a temporary run and are working on leveling the forest around first before building a big run for them too!)
Needless to say, we had no plans for hatching any eggs this year. A: It’s getting cold and B: We were SURE that with all of our layers being relatively new outside of our original 8 hens (I mean, we’ve got June and August babies in our big coop!) that fertility/virility/all that would be less than stellar.
I fell on the ice about five weeks ago and hubby was handling all the chicken work for me because my knee was a mess. He and kiddo kept mentioning Oregano (buff orpington) was constantly on the nesting box but “no worries, she gets off at night.” Needless to say, she was not getting off the box at night. Dutifully she stayed despite her eggs being taken each day. I was fine to start back a week after (fourish weeks ago now) and indeed confirmed Oregano had dreams of motherhood. Now, we’ve never tried to break broodies as we had not had any before. We also have several local friends looking to expand their flocks. And I mean, incubators in the closet just means they need to be tested to be sure they’re still working, right?
So here I was, thinking if I put in 20 that we would be LUCKY if one even developed. Now, we do have a lot of roos, about 7, in our main flock. (Hen to roo ratio is about 10-15 to 1), and there’s never been a serious fight. So you’d think I would know better than to think so few would. I candled them and saw no development and put them in.
10 developed. Strongly! I had another four under Oregano. My fears were if none developed under her, we would be restarting her broody process and we didn’t want her on the nest longer than necessary. And oh boy, 2 under her were developing. We tried to move her and the box and let me tell you, that was beautifully unsuccessful. She abandoned her box to squawk and try to go back to the main flock. Then would panic and want the eggs, but not want away from the flock. So, we decided to just let her sit on the nest where everyone else was and mark the eggs.
You’d think smooth sailing from there, right? Well… HER nesting box became THE desired nesting box. She was there 24/7 so naturally, everyone else saw it as prime real estate. One egg was stepped on by a hen who is one of the clumsiest of the bunch, and the fourth never developed, leaving her with 2 eggs. Fast forward to the 4th. They’re due to hatch today, the 8th. There’s peeping coming from the computer room (where the incubators are)… FIVE days early, little Lucky hatched. Before they even went into lockdown! I say 5 because he was DRY when we found him. He was just relaxing in the egg turner, in the little divider. No complaints, just vibes. We still don’t know how he hatched so early. His egg was rather light - I would’ve seen development then I’m sure if there had been any. But regardless, the little early mystery arrived. I was worried if we put him with Oregano early, she would abandon the other eggs and the other incubator babies would be without a mom, so he was our designated cuddle buddy until today. He got to relax in his own private brooder but was frequently brought in to hang out, have snacks (chick crumble of course), and watch KDramas with me while resting on a warm sock filled with rice.
Now, you’d think THAT was the last round of chaos yes? No again.
I had the “brilliant” idea to take one of the six final developers when I was starting lockdown and put it under Oregano so she would have three eggs! I was tired, so I forgot to mark it. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this…
I pulled all the unmarked eggs from Oregano’s box and brought them inside. And onto the counter they went with our other collected eggs. That was two days ago. That night, our son insists he’s hearing chirping from the kitchen. I say it’s impossible. But sleuth he does, and hands me a CHIRPING EGG. Of course I was terrified I’d sentenced this egg to death with my forgetfulness. I was so distraught but popped it right back in the incubator.
And roll credits to yesterday… the 2 under Oregano hatched, and the other five eggs left in the incubator (#6 being early Lucky!) hatched as well. Even our little counter chick! This morning, I started to smuggle chicks outside in the chill in my hoodie pockets and slipped them under Oregano. Then I would after a while gently pull them all out to make sure she saw them and approved. Not a single complaint! She took in all eight extra chicks, even the older Lucky! (He’s in one of the pics below on top of Oregano). She tidbits for them, makes sure they’re under her, and seems to overall enjoy having her babies. She’s now in our little white coop, just her and the babies, and our Big Baby Bungalow (giant shed) will be completed tomorrow for us to move her and babies into so there’s lots of moving around room.
I’ll add more pics of all the babies tomorrow, but they’re all SO cute! Rocky is our main rooster (previously known as Big Man), a barred rock. We expected all the babies to look like him or similar, but we KNOW at least one that wasn’t (five toes - could only be from Grim, our Crazy Cackle Toppie, who has one boyfriend and that is Ranch, our Splash Polish roo).
Thank you for reading through my little slice of start-of-the-year chaos. I am overjoyed to welcome all eight of these sweeties into our flock, and so proud of Oregano for being a great first time mom!
“Where’s the TV?”
(Leftmost was our counter baby)
Li’l skunk stripe baby here is Grim’s - so 99% likely to be Splash’s baby too!
The full black baby has little fuzzy feet!
More pics to come tomorrow of course. But what they ALL are, is adorable.
(the local food pantry and wildlife rescue sure are happy about that!)
She is so attentive and seems so content! I’m so proud of her.
