Phaedra's happy mini flocks

[Phaedra Geiermann]

Something funny happened recently:

Those 3 pullets and 3 cockerels (now 4 months old) are growing so quickly, especially cockerels. It looks like they have a discussion and becomes 3 couples.

Now their voices are more like ducks, somehow funny.

This weekend we will start making our bachelor's pen and seperate the cockerels at the end of the month. 3 young pullets will stay with the other 5 adult hens.

I always buy some 50% discount ingredients as we have now 20 animal kids. Today we also got a lot of goodies in discounter Lidl. To be honest, they are totally fine for me.

We bought about 4kg banana for about 1.6 Euro and other veggies. Chickens love bananas so much, and they will have a moderate amount (with peels) as treat daily.

After quick check and cut, chickens immediatey got some bonus food (right side), and we also have very good ingredients for today's meals.

We share the same food together

 

[LaFleche]

I bought them from another chicken owner, because this is the first time I have a broody hen. But in the future all broody girls will go to the broody pen, 16 chickens are already enough for us

That's what we said when we started with chickens more than two decades ago...

 

[LaFleche]

Something funny happened recently:

Those 3 pullets and 3 cockerels (now 4 months old) are growing so quickly, especially cockerels. It looks like they have a discussion and becomes 3 couples.

Quite unusual, indeed.

From my experience the pullets mostly choose just one cockerel to follow around and run to for protection from the others that are trying to (over)mate them. And it is not always the extremely dominant/aggressive one they like, but the one with calm assertiveness.

 

[Louwin]

I love reading about your flock. Thanks for sharing. Your meal preparation for them is amazing!!

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

That's what we said when we started with chickens more than two decades ago...

I can understand, I also thought 5 are enough in the beginning and don't know why now we have already 16

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

Quite unusual, indeed.

From my experience the pullets mostly choose just one cockerel to follow around and run to for protection from the others that are trying to (over)mate them. And it is not always the extremely dominant/aggressive one they like, but the one with calm assertiveness.

Such a couple-scenario only exists when there is no food involved. When food appears, girl friends are no longer important.

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

14-weeks old, Odin is a handsome guy. I like the pattern of his feather.

Besides the 4 chicken food towers, I added today a bigger one for cold compost, which will be used for their dropping and green materials in the surrounding of this coop. In two weeks about 100 sunflowers would be harvested, and all the seeds belong to chickens and some other birds in the garden.

Besides, I took a short video from the top of chicken food tower N5 (another coop), the main character today is so cute when she jumped and got some greens.

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

It's somehow funny to see how mama hen and chicks were 2 months ago and now.

Although we have a busy Sunday, I finished most of my garden work before noon time, including setting up another chicken compost area for them to kill time. As now it's the end of summer, there are really a lot of green materials for making compost. Here I put only safe materials: corn stalks and leaves, snapdragons, raspberries, sunflower stalks, and lavenders.

One of the Marans got broody again (the 3rd time this year) three days ago. We put her inside the broody cage, and today she is back to normal.

Few weeks ago this Araucana also became broody (also the 3rd time this year), and she stayed inside for 2 full days. I am really happy that broody cage works very well.

The coming week we are going to set up the bacherlor's pen, and hopefully everything will go smoothly.

 

[ButtonHoarder]

Wow, your chickens are so lucky! They’re living like royalty!

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

Don't know why, never know that chickens love veggies so much.

The adult hens are very protective of any food, so their morning and evening meals are always offered in multi-stations. However, for any bonus food, the young pullets and cockerels need to try their best to practice hit and run.

Like today, I cleaned several raised beds, so all chickens got a lot of greens to eat and play.

This hen really has a huge comb and unique character. I don't know why I love her so much, even she is the one who always can figure out a way to escape from the run and destory some of my crops. I still love her

As usual, I save food in glass jars for their breakfast (I use food processor to cut everything into small pieces). What I saved today is funny - One jar is the homegrown veggies, and the other is half burger and fries that my daughter doesn't want to finish. Well, some happy elements for coming weekend!