Pipd's Peeps!

[Mr MKK FARMS]

Crashie looks lovely.

Ihi...

Do you think maybe wild animals are secretly powering the broody brigade?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Haha, no, the wild animals are only interested in stealing the food in the broody buster. There's a chipmunk that made a hole right next to the duck pen and it has been stealing food wherever it can get it. Ugh!


In other news, Crashie! I gave him a bath again today and it was hilarious! He gets all zoomy when he gets a bath and runs all over the place in excitement (out of the water, but who's even keeping track of that? ). His tub is this little 5-inch square dish that's about an inch deep, which apparently is not big enough for him because he jumps into the water and then ZOOOOMS out of it and across the floor!

Today, he decided to play ducky torpedo in his little tub. He was dabbling from the edge of his tub when suddenly, he jumped beak-first in and shot under the water. Well, inch-deep water only just covers him, so his little flipper feet kept kicking out over the surface. And guess who was sitting where all his flipper-feet-kicking was throwing the water? So I guess I took a bath as well. I'm thinking I'll give him a trial run in the bath tub (with shallow water, of course!) either later today or tomorrow, and see if I can avoid a dousing from now on.

Some pictures from before bath time this morning. Crashie has perfected the innocent look. "Who, me?"

I tried to get a picture of him pecking his reflection in the mirror, but this was as close as I got:

And a picture next to his little buddy. Is it me, or does he seem bigger still than last time?

Gotta run for now! Time to check in on the little squirt, and then go talk to the big girls outside.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Mr. Manly Ball of Fluff, Reuben, came out of quarantine this morning. He's in a pen next to the girls so that they can get to know each other. The ladies are less than impressed. He crowed, and then wing danced at the hens that were looking at him through the fence, and they all just stood there like, "What is this? " He's still young and not as impressive as he thinks he is.

He and Mr. Toes have pretty much been crowing nonstop today. I like hearing all this crowing again. It's been a while! Mr. Toes is over 10 years old now and just doesn't have the gumption to crow much anymore. Apparently, though, Reuben is enough competition to encourage him. So at the moment, we've got crowing wars going on between the boys.

As for the broody brigade, I think our Dorking sisters are trying to decide if they really want to brood or not, but everyone else seems done. The Dorkings have been sitting longer than usual for their eggs and making some pretty nasty noises when I pet them while they're on the nest. Silly girls, they have the sweetest evil broody noises I've ever heard! But no one is sitting all day long yet, so the broody buster is empty again!




Are y'all sick of Crashie? I have more pictures of the squirt today. He was really laying on the adorableness this morning. I can't help it, he's just too cute for words!

His obligatory picture with his little buddy!

This one is out of focus, but, I mean, his face!

NOM!

He's still less than thrilled whenever he needs to be picked up.

Looking so expectant, isn't he?

Seriously, how could anything be allowed to be so darned cute?!

He still likes to wake me up too early in the morning. I think that's why he's so cute--it's a survival mechanism.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

This morning was a learning experience.

We have an abundance of pens here, but the only ones that are predator proof for nighttime are the chicken and duck coops, so obviously Reuben couldn't stay in his daytime pen overnight. As such, I set up a small dog crate in the chicken coop with the girls for the night. I wanted it to be out of the way, so I put it under the nest boxes in the corner.

Now, I've mentioned it before, I think, but I have a baby monitor in the coop so that I can hear if anything happens in the night. The 'baby' end of the baby monitor is on the nest boxes. Do you see the problem?

Round about 6 am, it sounded like Reuben had somehow gotten into my bedroom with me! I woke up to him crowing, loud and clear--because his crate was set up right underneath the baby monitor in the coop.

Needless to say, it has been moved now. Reub will be sleeping a bit further away from the baby monitor tonight...


Speaking of him, his previous owner wanted to see how he was filling out, so I took a few pictures of him this morning. He's a handsome guy, but he's difficult to take pictures of. I had to make all sorts of noises, from kissy noises to fake clucking, to get him to pose well enough for these pictures.

Swoon!

He's thinking, 'What the heck is that noise?'

I started to get some pictures of the girls, but I had to stop short because I had to watch my niece and nephew for a bit. :/ So here's what I got while I was out there.

Traffic at the nests this morning. Pogonip and She Who Sleeps Standing Up are forming a line. (Poggy is the Speckled Sussex in front; She Who is in back, a Partridge Plymouth Rock.)

Frou-Frou says, "Honk?"

And Miss Kate standing in the door of the coop. I never realize how much dirt the coop has in it until I take pictures of it. Guess it's time for spring cleaning, huh?

And little Crashie is a week old today and still going strong! So here are a couple pictures of the little squirt as well.

He looks like he's snarling! I guess he really doesn't like being picked up.

He is the cutest thing in the bathtub! He does his zoomies in the water, goes torpedo mode, splashes all over the place, and even gets his little tiny wings flapping! He likes to chase bubbles, too, and will follow my hand around through the water. Argh, too cute!! I've tried taking video of him in there, but he goes pretty quiet whenever he sees my phone out for some reason. Sigh... But oh, well.

 

[shadow rabbit10]

Haha! That rooster story was funny. He is a very pretty roo. Glad to see Crashie is still going strong!

 

[autumnhearth]

As for the broody brigade, I think our Dorking sisters are trying to decide if they really want to brood or not, but everyone else seems done. The Dorkings have been sitting longer than usual for their eggs and making some pretty nasty noises when I pet them while they're on the nest. Silly girls, they have the sweetest evil broody noises I've ever heard!

But no one is sitting all day long yet, so the broody buster is empty again!

Are y'all sick of Crashie?

I have more pictures of the squirt today. He was really laying on the adorableness this morning. I can't help it, he's just too cute for words!

His obligatory picture with his little buddy!



Seriously, how could anything be allowed to be so darned cute?!

Oh my goodness Crashie is ridiculously cute! His adorable face and posing with the easter chick and mirror just slays me.

Victoria our Dorking makes this hilarious whinnying sound when I open the nest box on her, I love it, but it's hard to get her long tail back in.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Ridiculously cute is right! Oh my goodness, it's almost too much to take!

The Dorkings really do have long tails, too, don't they? They stick out of my nests, too. On the plus side, I can always find them if I'm looking for them...



Crashie baby, I'm glad he's doing so well, too. Every little thing he does, I've been coming on BYC to search and see if it's normal. He had a nostril plugged the other day, which was something that the other little duckling, Wibbles, had a lot of issues with. I panicked and searched and searched, and everyone said to give them a bath, so I did, and... Problem solved! I'm really seeing how unthrifty the poor baby was now that I'm raising a normal duckling. He is so huge already, easily double the size Wibsy was at this age. I've still got that fear in the back of my mind that I'll lose my little Crashie like I lost Wibs, but he's doing so much better than she ever did and I'm feeling better every day about his prognosis.


EDIT: Hm... I think I meant to quote some posts for this reply...



So! Yesterday, I took a few videos of young Crashie in the bath, but when I uploaded them, they turned out so choppy and just... bad. :/ I don't think the camera in my phone likes the lighting in the bathroom. If anyone wants to see them, they are here, here, and here.

Since they were so... iffy... I did the next best thing for today's bath time. I got my good camera out and took some pictures of the little guy in the tub. They turned out pretty awesome!

Rubber duckie mode!

I love how the water just beads up and rolls off of him!

Going into zoomie mode...

...And then, torpedo!

Here he is all dry in the brooder. There's that ridiculous amount of cuteness again.

And with his buddy.

In other news, sigh... Reuben got pooped on. Apparently the girls were perching on his crate this morning while they were waiting for me to open up the coop and... So, the choice for his nighttime spot is out where he'll be pooped on, or right underneath the baby monitor... Decisions, decisions...



Kit-kit is definitely on her way to broodydom. Her broodiness is different than the other girls. She doesn't really make evil noises, just grumbles. It's almost like she doesn't want to be mean, but her hormones are making her, so she's being as gentle as she can. She makes me want to hug her!

Okay, I anthropomorphize.

Anyway, Elda has already lost interest in brooding again. This is the second time that Elly has started to act broody and then changed her mind. I guess she's just not up for the responsibility. I never would have expected Kit-kit to be the more motherly of the Dorking twins, but it is what it is.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Well, today has been rainy off and on, so I decided it would be a good time to do a major overhaul on some of my chicken pages! I had written them a while back and some of them I just never liked. So now they have updated pictures and text! Yaaay? At any rate, they are all heavy with pictures and have a lot of random rambling about my birds, if you're incredibly bored and desperate for something to do. (P.S. The page for my Dorkings and their broodmates is not done, hence no link for 'the Littles'.)

The Reds - The Banties - Merlin and the Wyandotte Posse - Freema - The Barred Rocks
Betty - The Easter-Eggers - Frou-Frou - The Fab Five! - Te Heihei - The Littles​

And while I'm here, Crashie baby's pictures of the day. His picture with his Easter chick:

Later, he was sleeping between it and the mirror like the adorable little critter he is, but he moved before I could get a picture of the cuteness.

He's such a nibbler right now! He wants to chew on everything!

Look, he does have a neck!

 

[shadow rabbit10]

How cute! I'll have to check our your updated threads, even though I've read them all already.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Oh, my, you must have seriously been bored! But seriously, thanks for the interest. The ones that got major overhauls were Betty, Merlin and the Wyandottes, and Te Heihei. I don't think I touched Freema, Frou-Frou, or the Banties at all. I need to throw Reuben on the banty page and work on one for the youngest gals, but I'm much happier with them all now than I was before I reworded them today!









Well, we had some ugly weather this evening and it's still rumbling outside a bit. I'm a bit scared (read: absolutely terrified) of storms, so when it started getting very, very dark and windy about an hour before normal roost time, I may have panicked a bit. The girls were mostly in anyway, so I piled the rest of them into the coop early. They should be fine, but I always feel bad for them when they miss out on some of the day. I just didn't want to have to go out there in the middle of a storm to get them closed up!


I'm learning why the shade cover thing I put in their yard was on clearance. The thing has barely made it the couple months it's been up, and only with a lot of repair work. It has collapsed again, and I'm going to have to fix it up again in the morning, if it survives through the rest of the storms. UGH! Hopefully, we'll be building a more permanent covered area there soon and I can throw that hunk of junk out!

This is the thingy I'm talking about, by the way. It only looked this nice for about a week before it started breaking apart. :/

And our poor Crashie. I kept hearing this peeping noise, but it didn't sound like him, so I thought maybe it was on the TV. Come to find out, he had moved the Easter chick enough that it was sitting on poop, which was making it peep. The thing works by you completing a circuit by touching both of its feet at once, at which point it will start making noise. Well, damp material works just as well in completing that circuit, apparently. The poor baby has been sitting up there for an hour listening to that thing's shrill peeping because he pushed it to just the right spot! He was probably wondering why the heck the thing was so upset!