Pipd's Peeps!

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If it wasn't obvious, I'm really enjoying the weather and spending more time out with the birds. Here's Pete and his girls again this morning, eating from my hand. I wasn't sure how Pete would react, but he came right up and started chirping to bring the girls over, and clearly they heard him.

Pete was finally able to successfully breed Harley this morning, so it looks like no booty trims will be needed in that pen! I'm so ready to get hatching from these girls!!

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Their feathers are so "fluffy".

 

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They are! It's the same gene that gives the Silkie breed its signature 'fuzzy' look. I love silkied feathers, but I just don't like big crests like Silkies generally have (unless you get really poor quality hatchery Silkies, and even some of them can have bigger crests than I prefer), so I was thrilled when I found out that there are other breeds like Cochins that have silkied variants for me to love.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I believe Coco laid her first egg overnight between Friday and Saturday. There was a shell-less egg on their poop board Saturday morning and she had been sitting in the nest box Friday night at roost time. I moved her to the roost because I assumed she was just wanting to sleep in a nest, but I guess I was wrong?

Anyway, that would mean that all five silkied Cochin pullets are now laying! In about a month or so, I'll start figuring out some things and see if I can collect a clutch from just the two Blue girls to hatch some Blue babies from. In the mean time, I've started putting aside the eggs from Zinni and Myrtle to add to my Easter hatchalong eggs when they get here. I've got to get an incubator cleaned--that's this week!!

I... never made my soap. It got down to the wire last night and I decided to put it off for just one more day so that I wouldn't have to rush through it to get out to the chickens in time. I'll make it this afternoon. I have all the supplies ready for an in-the-mold swirl, tons of eggs to use, and the molds, themselves, are clean and ready to go, so it's just a matter of getting it done!

I did replace the hutch (that Casper loved to launch off of to the upper window, poor boy) behind my couch with a shelf to put all my soaping supplies and curing soaps on, so it's not like I got nothing done over the weekend at least.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

What are you doing with all this soap?

For my girl Maizie who is still not roosting, I decided to worm her. She acts fine when there are treats involved. But, when she was let out to roam, she walked slowly with her wings down. It's the only other thing I could think of. If it's not that, maybe she's feigning so that the cockerel doesn't bother her? This morning on camera she is out and about, so I will check and see if she stays out more than usual. I also set up an extra dish of feed in case she is getting bullied away from feed.
My cockerel tried to attack me twice while I was in the run yesterday. But, then he squawked to alert when he saw something fly overhead while out in the yard. So, I'm not sure if he's worth keeping or not.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I and a few members of my family use the soap. Even with as small of batches as I generally make, though, I've stockpiled a bit more than I could ever hope to use up for personal use, so I'm thinking about maybe starting up an etsy shop or putting an ad out there somewhere to sell some of it.

Oh, man, Maizie. I don't know that they'll feign sickness for things like that, honestly. It's so hard to diagnose what's going on with them because they hide so much, though. Hopefully a round of worming helps. You might want to go ahead and worm the entire flock while you're at it. Even if they aren't overloaded, if they have any worms then they'll just reinfest her.

I don't know on the cockerel. With very few exceptions, I don't keep any if they show human aggression, personally, because there seems to be a genetic component to it and I don't want that passed on in my flock. That said, if it's not frequent, it could just be him testing his boundaries and he might get bored of trying as long as you don't flee from him or otherwise give him the satisfaction of 'winning'. I don't know that I'm the best at explaining it, but that's my understanding of it at least.

 

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Here is the soap! It did set up faster than I needed it to (which means that it probably didn't swirl like I wanted it to), but it went... relatively well otherwise. A bit messy, but, well, I tried. It is red and blue swirled into uncolored (so off-white) soap.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Here is the soap! It did set up faster than I needed it to (which means that it probably didn't swirl like I wanted it to), but it went... relatively well otherwise. A bit messy, but, well, I tried. It is red and blue swirled into uncolored (so off-white) soap.

View attachment 3032618

That's pretty! The red sort of looks like feathers.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

As far as my cockerel, I'm keeping an eye on him to see what he's doing. He's definitely protective of the girls as he jumped off the roost to come at me, when I went to get Maizie.
I had another cockerel a few years back. He was pretty calm comparatively, but not sure how protective he was.
I'm going to worm them all, but I wanted to start with her to make sure she is getting her full dose.
She's worrying me for sure. If she weren't 3 already, I'd consider that it might be Mareks.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

That's pretty! The red sort of looks like feathers.

They sort of do! I want to try a hanger swirl at some point, which is supposed to make a feather or leaf like swirl at the center of each bar. Now that I've played around with colors, I'm feeling a bit more optimistic about my abilities, I guess!

As far as my cockerel, I'm keeping an eye on him to see what he's doing. He's definitely protective of the girls as he jumped off the roost to come at me, when I went to get Maizie.
I had another cockerel a few years back. He was pretty calm comparatively, but not sure how protective he was.
I'm going to worm them all, but I wanted to start with her to make sure she is getting her full dose.
She's worrying me for sure. If she weren't 3 already, I'd consider that it might be Mareks.

A lot of people think that aggression toward people will mean strong protective instincts, but I strongly disagree with that. I have never been attacked by either of my Silkie boys, for example, and I've seen Reuben jump feet-first at a swooping hawk, and Winter placed himself between a perched hawk and his fleeing hens. They're both quite calm boys, and literally the best two roosters I have ever had for protecting the girls from predators.

Do you know if Maizie is vaccinated against Marek's disease? I know the vaccine reduces symptoms; not sure if that would delay onset of them as well or not, but I do know it doesn't offer 100% protection from the disease. Unless you're seeing weird things like wry neck, pupil deformations, or leg paralysis, though, it's not likely Marek's.



Sort of related to health issues, I had a pecking incident in my flock yesterday. Neela has been resting a lot and not walking around with the flock, I believe because she hurt her leg somehow. I noticed a couple hours before roost time that she was starting to lose feathers on the back of her head, so I thought I'd need to keep an eye on that. By roost time, just a couple hours later, she had a huge, gaping peck wound where those feathers were missing. She's in a hospital pen now and I've carefully put ointment over the wound, poor baby. I'd been wondering for a couple days if I should separate her for a bit for her leg to heal. I guess I should have gone with that instinct when it initially came to me.