Pipd's Peeps!

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I have some random remaining pictures from Friday, so I guess I'll just post them in a big bunch here.

Cressida the Easter-egger posing nicely. Isn't she lovely?

Cressy and Rose, my only golden Sebright and the current oldest hen in the flock. They were eyeing Crashie, which made for a nice picture of them posing together.

Ol' grumpy-face Freema the Barred Plymouth Rock. I was interrupting her meal of spilled pellets from Reuben's pen.

Ihi the Golden Campine. No time for pictures--she's on the move!

Mabel the Welsummer giving me dirty looks, because obviously her molt is my fault.

Maggie the (clean-shaven) Easter-egger. She's on the go, too--comin' through!

Marama the Fayoumi, on the nest. It isn't bad enough she had to work that day, then she gets a camera shoved in her face! Humans!

Poggy again. She looks like she was put on the spot and didn't know what to say.

Reuben in the clink. :/ He's getting there.

Scooter the silver Sebright. She is looking marvelous with a fresh set of feathers!

She Who Sleeps Standing Up the Partridge Plymouth Rock, making the molting process look fabulous. Some hens just molt more gracefully, I guess.

And Trudi and Malcolm in their little pool. They, too, were disgruntled by the presence of Crash duck.

 

[shadow rabbit10]

Come to the Dork side!

But seriously, I really do love Dorkings. They're easily my favorite breed. They've just been so calm and lovable right from the get-go.

The dork side. Haha. I'd love to! Unfortunately, I'm leaving for school in less than a year and may not be able to keep the few chickens I have, so getting more isn't really a possibility right now. Some day, I'll get myself some Dorkings though...
By the way, I'm so jealous of your EEs' beards. They're so fluffy! My EE bantams just pick each others beards off.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Aw, well, there's always the future.

As for the beards, well, as you can see in Maggie's picture, mine eat each other's beards, too. The only reason Cress and Merlin have beards at the moment is because they've just finished their molts. It won't be long, I'm sure. I caught my red sexlink, Skua, pulling at Merl's beard yesterday, so it's already beginning.






Anyway, I took a few shots of the current progress of the Guinea enclosure. It makes me happy that they have so much more room! Even if they are now confused again about where to go every night. I keep having to get two long sticks and usher them toward the door before it finally clicks. Won't be long, hopefully, before I can just shoo them up into the Aviary section and close them in for the night.

Now that I've rambled a bit, the pictures! This is the best I can do for a full shot of it:

The new section. I put a grazing frame in there to keep some of the grass from being destroyed. The wooden structure in there used to be fenced on all sides, but we pulled the fence off two sides to open it up.

Here, you can see where the structure used to be, as well as a look at the coop. Yeah, it really needs to be replaced... The roll of fence back there will be stretched and attached to the aviary once the walls are up on it, after which that old coop is a goner!

The aviary. I don't know if it's very visible, but where the door is on the front is about where a window will be on the coop. The human door is going to go on the wall facing toward the right of this picture. And yes, they dump their food everywhere.

Another look at the structure out in the yard area. All of the supports that were for fence are now roosts. I think they approve.

While I was at it, I got a few pictures of the Guineas, since I don't have very many. I got a good individual picture of all of them except Handsome. :/ But oh, well. A few of them are also molting, so they're looking pretty rough at the moment.

Blind-eye:

Crooked Legs:

Curly:

Low Man:

The unnamed older guy who also has flat wattles:

Mama's Boy:

Short Stuff:

Short Stuff and Handsome:

'Normal Hen':

And the unnamed, half-blind, half-deaf, crooked beaked hen, looking a bit like a kiwi in this picture.

 

[shadow rabbit10]

That enclosure is really nice! I'm jealous! I love seeing guinea pics. They have such a vulture-esque look to them.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Today's been a little rocky. Everything was fine until someone posted a picture of their splash Orpington on another thread. It's not their fault, of course, it's all on me. This hen is the spitting image of Frou-Frou, the only difference being that, obviously, the Orpington has no feathers on her legs. And it sounded from the description of her that a lot of her mannerisms resemble how Frou'f acted sometimes. It really hit me hard again, the loss of that bird. Times like that make it feel like I will never be able to get through this deep, suffocating grief over her loss. I have never had such a hard time with the loss of a pet.

So, I did the only thing I knew I could to make myself feel better. Choking up, tears streaming down my face, I hurried out and found Elda. Oh, sweet Elly! She saw me, she saw what state I was in, and she came running.

It was different, though. I'd not seen her act like this before. It was almost like she was checking on me between me hugging on her and pressing my face into her lovely, soft feathers. My mom and sister happened to see how upset I was, so they were out there as well and feeding the hens some greens through the fence. I could tell Elly was tempted to go running with the rest of the hens, but she stayed, in spite of the fact that I wasn't hlding onto her, and she kept looking up at me and doing this little chirp, somewhat like a broody hen but a bit different.

After some time to let it out, I calmed myself down, and I kept telling her she was free to go any time she wanted to. I even moved my arm away so she knew she could jump down if she wished. Still, she sat with me a while longer, giving me more looks and chirping at me. Finally, she must have decided I really was okay, and she hopped down to move on with her evening free-ranging. I don't know what the looks or the chirping were about, but it was so sweet that she knew just how long I needed her. Seriously, chicken therapy is the best.

I only had my phone on me to take pictures during all this, but here's a crappy cell picture of sweet Elly giving me my much-needed chicken therapy.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Well, I've been meaning to post here for a few days, but our internet connection has been acting up and I haven't really had the chance until now. I thought I'd go ahead and post now since I have nothing better to do at the moment and everything's finally connecting smoothly.

First, unfortunately, is some bad news. My sassy Fayoumi, Marama, has some sort of lump in her left side, right around the area where her ovary should be from what I can tell. Based on her symptoms, I think she may have ovarian cancer. I've been doing some research and, well, there really isn't anything that can be done, so her time here is limited. She seems fine. She has her days where she's a little less energetic, but she's kept up her attitude and continues to free-range. As long as she doesn't appear to be in pain, I'm just going to keep an eye on her. I've read that a diet high in flaxseed can boost survivability of ovarian cancer in chickens, so I'm planning on giving the flock more flaxseed as a treat, and making sure Marama gets her fair share of it while she's here. It's all I can do...


At the same time as I was starting to see this, I had a scare with Kit-kit as well. I had been noticing that she wasn't herself and her comb had been bluish, so I had been keeping an eye on her. Well, about a week ago, we had a cold spell (in the 50's, so nothing too extreme), and that's when I found Kit huddled under the nest boxes, her comb almost completely purple, like the color of the Silkies' combs! I brought her in overnight, and after reading the advise of others whose birds had similar events, gave her a dose of dewormer to see if it helped. The next morning, her comb was mostly back to normal, though she was still a bit sluggish. I took her back outside since it had warmed up, and she rested a lot through the day. That night, her comb was its normal color and she had gone to roost on her own. She's 100% fine at this point. I have no idea what was wrong, if the dewormer did the trick or if it was just something that happened to pass at the same time. But oh well. What's important is that my Kit-kit is back to herself!


As for the rest of the flock, it's been rather same-old, same-old other than the above. Margie is brooding right now, so she's in a separate pen and Reuben's in the flock. I see a lot of good traits in him already. He's lately gone away from the fake treat chirp and started only chirping for the girls when he actually has something for them. The other day, I actually watched him search the ground for a good few minutes before he finally found something to chirp about. When he does find something, he stands back and lets the girls eat without bothering them. He dances for them all the time, but with no success, the poor guy! His hatchday is this month (though I don't know the exact day), so here's hoping the girls start taking him seriously soon, now that he's technically no longer a cockerel and instead a full-fledged rooster. He's already done a lot for them as it is, the ingrates! On the topic, we have had a few scares with a hawk since that first time when Reub stepped up, but everyone is still safe and I haven't seen or heard from that hawk in about a week now.

And in with the ducks, lately Trudi has been SUPER NOISY! I had been worried because I thought maybe something was wrong, but as far as I can tell, she's behaving normally for a call duck hen now, and before she had been too quiet. I wonder if it has just taken her this long to decide she's okay with her new home..? At any rate, I'm happy that she's happy now, even if it does come with some alarmingly loud noises from the duck yard on a regular basis!

We'll hopefully be working on the Guinea enclosure today (if the wretched weather breaks!), so I'll try to have pictures of our progress by tonight. I have a 5-day weekend, so I may take fresh pictures at some point in the next few days anyway. Of course, this will be the first place I post them if I do.


Sorry for all the rambling--I'm done now.

 

[PouleNoire]

Hope Marama gets better soon!

Kit-kit seemed not to be having such a happy time, it's a good thing she's better! Go Rueben!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Yeah, poor Marama. As if it wasn't bad enough for her, she's now gone into molt. Poor darlin'. :/ It also looks like she and Iddy Biddy, my supposed-to-be Speckled Sussex, have a mild case of fowl pox. Holy cow, it's true, problems don't come singly!

Even with all this, though, Marama's still up to her usual shenanigans. She and Ihi, who is like her best friend, have been getting out of the designated free-range area and into the driveway, now known as the NO CHICKEN ZONE. I had thought the two of them were hopping the fence because they're such springy little ladies, but even after wing clipping and blocking likely areas for hopping over, they were still getting by. Today, while we were out working, I finally was able to see how they've been getting out! I have been keeping them out of the driveway with a fence from their coop to the corner of the house. Well, Ihi and Marama have apparently figured out that they can go back behind the 50x100 foot chicken yard and circle the coop, right into the NO CHICKEN ZONE! I have no idea why they want out there so badly, but now that I finally know what's going on, I can block them! Naughty, naughty girls!


I never got around to getting my camera out after all, but we got a wall and a half up on the Guinea aviary in the past two days, including a fresh new door for the future coop! Tomorrow, my aunt is coming over for a visit, so no work will be done. However, the day after, since I have the day off from classes, we'll be heading in to buy another wall and a half worth of lumber and get some more walls worked on. The perches are already set up inside and the Guineas love them (well, as much as Guineas love anything ). I can already tell that this winter will be SO much easier with this setup! Yay!

 

[shadow rabbit10]

Sorry to hear about Marama and your small pox situation. Wishing them the best of luck. Glad Kit-kit is better though! Haha. You're hens don't seem to know a good rooster when they see one.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Picture time! (Homework, what homework?)

We're about 95% done with the Guinea coop conversion! All the walls are up, the vents are cut and covered in hardware cloth, and the doors are functional with latches! We just need to get hinges for one last vent cover (in case of cold weather), finish the roof, and get some windows! However, since it is secure, we went ahead and trashed the old coop, so tonight will be the Guineas' first night in their new coop. Now, guess what I neglected to get pictures of...


Actually, I had been taking pictures this morning before everything was done, and now that we've done all this work, I'm too tired (read: lazy) to run up the stairs for my camera again...


So anyway, I do have a handful of pictures of the girls to share. Okay, maybe quite a few. We've been having cool autumn weather, and the leaves are falling as fast as the feathers now, so it was very scenic out there. Not that I focused much on the scenery, just the lovely ladies.

To start off, Freema the grumpy face (okay, her actual breed is Barred Rock). Freema believes it is her right to have lap time any time she pleases. This made crouching for some of these pictures somewhat difficult.

Iddy Biddy the supposed-to-be Specked Sussex. She was not amused.

She always has a scowl on her face, but somehow it's endearing.

Miss Kate, finishing out her molt. Looking pretty good, but she's got some feather growing to do still.

Mabey Mabel the Welsummer. I had to distract her in order to get her to pose--she thought she'd just run right up and check out the camera.

Cressy lost her legs!! Okay, not really. She's standing in one of their dust bath pits. I have no idea where they think they're digging to, but I'm thinking it must be China that they're aiming for.

Rangi the Ancona on the nest. Avoiding eye contact... She's so meek.

She Who Sleeps Standing Up the Partridge Plymouth Rock. She is just such a beauty!!

Kit-kit, the dear. She seems totally fine now as far as her behavior, but she's down to 2 tail feathers, so I suspect she's heading into molt.

So... Speaking of molt... Here's Ani Wyandotte... She always turns into a Naked Neck for her molts...

Yuck, the pins... That just has to be itchy!

Here's Ani next to her sister, Raven. What a difference!

Poor Marama looks miserable with her molt... I'm guessing it's not coincidental that she's molting now, but I hope she feels at least a little better once she's done with it.

Huka the Silver Lakenvelder is also molting, but she's not letting it slow her down!

Aaaand.... Then there's Roha. She lives for the limelight!

Duckies! This isn't a great picture, but I love Trudi's cheeks in the background!

Trudi-Patooti. And Malcolm's butt.

And this one is from last night, but I thought it was cute. The girls say good night!