Our little flock

[ameliadanielle]

It's been a long time since an update. Our hens are keeping us and our friends in eggs. The silkie hens stopped laying and began a molt as soon as we got them. The silkie rooster I believe is older than they are and he's been just fine. He is really enjoying being the grown up rooster in the yard with 11 hens. He hangs out with the 9 laying hens all day, but he still sleeps with the two silkie hens at night. Our pair of game chickens is growing up slowly. we're going to have to see about rehoming or building them a pen they can stay in 24/7. They have no problem flying over our 6 foot fence and roaming where ever they please. Which has been the neighbors back yard.

I still can't get the girls to use any nest boxes. I've tried crates, boxes, and we built some out of 5 gallon buckets. They still prefer to crawl under the lawnmower and lay eggs when it is in the back yard, or finding any weeds that have shot up around the fence and getting between them and the fence. We blocked off their favorite spot with the nesting buckets and they just go to great lengths to get around and behind them. It's getting really old having to check and wash and refrigerate eggs because they are getting soaked by the rain we've been having.

I guess last option is to lock them up for a week with nest boxes. I just hate cooping them up when they're so used to free ranging the back yard and they don't seem to lay eggs until lunchtime.

 

[Hholly]

Nice flock! And cute pigs too.

 

[ameliadanielle]

The muscovies looking too grown up already. This was before they started what I am assuming is their adult molt. I thought one of our poor ducks was getting overbred as she started getting a bald spot on her neck, then the drake got one too, the poor brown girl is losing feathers elsewhere. We got them May 31st, at a few weeks old. So I guess they're going to be getting their real grown up feathers. I've looked for signs of mites and lice and couldn't find anything. Our laying hens already molted into their adult feathers a while back. Our silkie hens are just finishing growing their feathers back in. So hopefully in a couple of weeks everyone will be looking normal again. We've had so much rain and it's so overcast it'll be hard to get good pictures until the sun comes back out.

 

[ameliadanielle]

Well, I took it for granted that my little flock was so peaceful. We had the pair of American Gamefowl in the backyard that basically kept to themselves. They would fly over the fence and hang out in garage with me in the morning while I drank coffee and had a cigarette before feeding them their breakfast. The silkie rooster had his two silkie hens plus all 9 laying hens in his little flock and he was top dog of the back yard. Even chasing off the game rooster at feeding time. I have 4 gold laced Wyandottes and I saw a blue red laced rooster for $10, I think he may be a splash as his lacing is white. I also picked up 4 more wyandotte chicks, already feathered. So 2 nights ago I put the rooster on the roost that night with everyone else as all of the chickens and our 3 muscovy ducks all sleep together in a big pile despite there being multiple roosts for them. It was all cool until the next morning. The silkie crowed, the game rooster crowed, then the Wyandotte rooster crowed and that was it. The game rooster and the Silkie rooster began to squabble over who got to add the 4 new chicks to their flock. My scared of literally everything game rooster turned the back yard into Thunderdome and went after the Wyandotte rooster. Thankfully I was outside watching to make sure there was no trouble. So Humphrey, the game rooster, is currently residing in my garage with his one lady. We are getting a pen for him to share with his hen this morning. Our silkie rooster is also now penned up with his two silkie hens as he was even WORSE going after the new rooster, I swear he thinks he is a 30 pound rooster. It's a good thing he's a pretty harmless maybe 2 pound ball of fluff. So finally this morning our Wyandotte rooster is enjoying walking the yard. He has no hens with him yet though, they are all crowding around the pen where the silkies are trying to still hang out with the little fuzzball who is obviously filled to the brim with testosterone.

I never learn. I had a peaceful thing going on. I just had to go and mess it up. Honestly I was only looking at getting more hens. We get 5-9 eggs a day and we can't keep eggs around. We have a lot of people benefiting from free free range eggs. I had already agreed to take two white leghorn pullets today too, as I really just wanted more eggs. Hopefully they'll take up with the Wyandotte rooster so he won't be lonely, and with our other two roosters confined, maybe he'll get confident enough to take over our 9 laying hens on the yard. I think our little 7 month old game rooster and the tiny fluff ball of fury really hurt his ego, no physical injuries, but he was totally antisocial all day yesterday. At least he came up to drink water and eat today.

 

[sroy]

Breakfast time!

What ADORABLE piglets!!! That brown and black one is PRECIOUS!!!!

 

[ameliadanielle]

The game chickens have decided to live on top of our garage shelving for the time being. They only come down to eat and drink. It's going to be really fun to get them down when their pen gets here.

 

[ameliadanielle]

When you are so short your chickens think you make a perfectly good roost.

 

[ameliadanielle]

I am a chicken grandma. The broody hen we had to move into a new nest in the garage away from the other hens has hatched one baby so far late last night. I'm crossing my fingers that more hatch out before she stops sitting on the nest.

 

[ameliadanielle]

We'll have a guessing game... because any of my 9 laying hens (Gold Laced Wyandottes, Buff Orpingtons, Red Stars, or Rhode Island Red) could be the mama and any of 3 roosters (Buff Silkie, Blue American Game, or Splash Red Laced Wyandotte) could be the dad. So this will get interesting. We hadn't planned on hatching anything out but my husband didn't take the eggs from under her when she first started sitting and I just didn't have the heart to toss them and break her from being broody.

 

[ameliadanielle]

Parentage has been determined on the roosters side.

Somehow we got a partridge chick. Who knows where those genetics came from.

So we have 4 babies. Even if she gets off the nest now I am ok with that. The one lone chick won't be alone.