Pipd's Peeps!

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Either Nadine or Reinette laid her first egg today!! I'm leaning toward Nadine because of how she's been acting lately with the squatting and lots of pacing, but both of them are very developed and it honestly could have been either! Here it is next to a couple more normal brown eggs. The one on the left is the darkest brown egg I've gotten recently, not including the newbie of course, and the middle one is about the normal color for most of the brown eggs I get.

And a shot to show the shape. It's a torpedo egg.

In other news, I'm about fed up with roosters right now!

The Black Copper Marans cockerel (not Murphy, but the other one) was chasing Darwin around ferociously this morning and he's been bullying most of the other cockerels, so I finally gave up on them getting along and separated him into another pen. Well, poor Nadine was reaching her head through to peck at his feed this evening, because obviously it's better than the feed in the main flock dish, and he must have grabbed her. She's missing a big chunk of one wattle now and her comb was bleeding at the back. THEN, while I was fixing up that pen so that the hens can't reach through anymore, Vander tried to grab little tiny Donna and mount her, right behind me! I was livid--and so was Donna, who whipped around with her hackles raised and kicked his butt! Anyway, that was the last straw for him, too, because I don't want to risk him hurting one of my precious little silkied Cochin fuzzies. So, he is now in a separate pen, too.

On the plus side, things seem calmer in the cockerel flock now. Hopefully Endymion can settle down a bit, too, now that Vander is removed.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I'm 99% sure that Nadine is the one laying now. I got a HUGE egg (probably double yolk) that understandably looked different, though I'm still relatively sure it was Nadine. But still, there's always that chance that Reinette is being sneaky, right?

Not a whole lot going on around here at the moment, other than I've come down with some kind of light cold, I guess. I have lab for one of my classes on Thursdays, and last Thursday it was 90+ degrees out, we were working in waders which block all ability to release heat from the waist down, there was absolutely no shade, and I just cooked. I guzzled a couple bottles of water on my way home from that, got home and had a cold shower, slept for probably a half hour, and spent the weekend feeling weak, achy, and tired. I think my immune system took a hit from that, because yesterday, I also started feeling this cold coming on. Ugh!

Anyway, so nothing much has happened with the birds because I just haven't been out there, but I wanted to post a couple pictures of the honorary duck, because he is so funny! The other night, when I went out to close the coops for the night, here is where I found him. That's the pop door for the duck coop, in case you wondered. Taking that 'honorary duck' status a little far? (P.S. don't mind the mess--I have no idea what those duckies have been up to!)

Then I emptied the duck pool over the weekend to clean and refill it. I always empty it at night and refill it in the morning. Well, the next morning, here's where the honorary duck was:

"I swear I left my pool right here last night!"

Then, last night, I was heading over to the duck coop to close it for the night, when this little guy crossed my path. It's a teeny-tiny tree frog!

Be still my heart, it was just SO CUTE!! Look at it's little sticky toes on my thumb!!

So, uh, anyway, I hope y'all like frogs.

 

[shadow rabbit10]

Aaahh I've been so busy with school I've missed so much. Glad to hear things have been going smoothly on your end, and I hope your cold goes away soon. I love the frog pics by the way. Hope the ducks don't think he's a snack! I'm always down for herp pics

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Haha, well, the 'honorary duck' has been seen sitting on the brick step of the duck pool right next to Trudi, so I don't think he's got anything to be concerned about. He's big enough that they probably couldn't eat him if they tried. This is one hefty frog! Now, the little tree frog would probably be a bite-sized snack even for the tiny Call Ducks. I haven't seen it since last night, but I didn't expect to, as those guys tend to move around more. I have been hearing tree frogs calling occasionally, so I'm sure it's around. At least, I hope so, because if the hens found it it's definitely long gone now! Anyway, glad you enjoyed the frog pics!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

More rooster drama, UGH! Tygo has decided he's got it out for the three Red Dorking boys and has been harassing them relentlessly. I need to get another pen finished so that I can do some rearranging with them again, which means working in spite of my cold. I can't decide if it would be better to take the Red boys out to a separate pen, or move Tygo out and see if things calm down. I was hoping the keeper boys would get along well enough to be kept together, which is why I'm torn about who to take out to keep as many of them together as possible. Either way, I'm planning on getting Roscoe out of there ASAP. Roscoe has been ruling unchallenged in the rooster pen, but he is positively tiny compared to those young boys. Should any of them decide to challenge him, he'd be flattened, and he's probably the most valuable rooster I have right now so I definitely don't want anything to happen to him!

I'm concerned that Tygo's attitude is taking a turn for the worst now, too. He jumped out of the pen a week or two ago, so I had to catch him and I clipped his wing while I was at it. Since then, he's been taking threatening postures towards me. I don't like it. He's a handsome guy, but I will not keep him if he becomes human aggressive. I'm hoping it's just a sudden surge of hormones and he settles down.

Meanwhile, I'm having second thoughts about Rigby now, because he's also been showing some aggression. The other day, he was following along the fence beside me, shoulder down and looking for a way through. I think if the fence hadn't been there he would have flogged me.

So, now I'm wondering if Lucky wouldn't be the better of the three to keep, as as of right now he's showing the least amount of aggression towards me. Ramsay has repeatedly flogged me and is always threatening me through the fence, so I'm positive he is not going to be kept. I literally only want to keep one of them just in case something happens to Roscoe, and whoever is kept only has to stick around long enough for me to hatch more from Roscoe. I think I handled these three too much as chicks, honestly. The next batch, I'm separating the boys out as soon as I can tell them apart and just not handling them at all. Hopefully, that will lead to some better behaved boys...

Darn roosters and all their hormones!

EDIT a bit later...: Oh, gosh, but they're so handsome...

In order from left to right: Theo, Murphy, Dante, non-keeper Red Dorking, and Darwin.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Picture day! It was just so nice out today, and since I had things to do... I got the camera out instead. I set out to get updated pictures of this year's pullets and the keeper cockerels, since it's been a LOOONG time since I've gotten the good camera out and taken pictures of any of them, and I also grabbed a few of the other girls while I was at it. I really meant to take more, but my camera died and I had forgotten to charge my spare battery pack when it died last. Oops! I hope 18 pictures is enough!

To start off, here are my gorgeous pullets.

Echo the Dark Dorking. She's become the skitterish one of the group, odd because she used to be the most friendly. She and Tess did me a huge favor, though, and had their combs fall over to opposite sides, so I can tell them apart now.

Here's Tessa, too. Tess is what I would call reserved. She's not necessarily shy, as she'll come right up to me, but she backs off if I try to touch her at all. Oh, well, at least she's pretty.

Nadine the Black Copper Marans. I couldn't get this girl to sit still for ANYTHING! Apparently she had a lot of grazing to catch up on after laying her egg for the day! So, this was the best I could do:

Reinette the Wheaten Marans. She was still, but wouldn't pose nicely. She's a bit prissy and particular, but she and Nadine will come over to me if I crouch. She's quite pretty, too.

Lastly for the pullets, Perdita the Red Dorking. You can see she's quite far behind in development compared to her sisters. She's gotten very sweet lately, approaching me to be picked up and cuddled.

Now, the keeper boys. Of the cockerels, that is!

Since he didn't have a very good picture for his introduction, here's Murphy the (Golden?) Black Copper Marans.

Darwin the Red Dorking. He's as bad as Nadine for not sitting still!

This is the ONLY picture I got of him in which he wasn't blurry from him moving or practically black because he positioned himself to be backlit. It doesn't show his color well because he's still backlit, I just tinkered with my camera settings until he was at least visible. Check him out, though! The last time I took pictures of him, he was so small and sickly!

Dante, backup Red Dorking for Darwin. He's done some filling out, too! At least he's getting a little black in his chest now like he's supposed to...

Theodore the rose comb Dark Dorking cockerel. Check this fella out! Side note -- he wasn't walking, he was just standing there like this for no apparent reason.

And Tygo... Tygo, Tygo, Tygo... He put aside too much space in that head to support that huge comb, and left no room for brains.

A few miscellaneous pictures I took while I was out there. Reinette's comb and wattles really came in!

Murph again. He's a pro at posing for pictures!

One of many attempts at getting Nadine to pose.

Her wattle and comb healed up nicely.

Here's Perdita being cute.

Speaking of cute, there's precious little Abra!

Fancy the Partridge Plymouth Rock, just being pretty. She and She Who have both become more friendly recently. They're about 5 years old now and have always been more aloof. I have no complaints if they want more attention from me.

And finally, an outtake from trying to get Darwin's picture. He's outta here!

 

[itspebbl]

They are all so gorgeous now! Especially Murphy

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Oops, I thought I replied to you! Anyway, I just was going to agree. Murph is quite the stud, isn't he?

I had to stop by to share this picture I took on my cell phone the other day. I've been giggling since I pulled it up on my computer this morning. To briefly explain, Iddy Biddy thought I had food for her.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

It's official! Reinette has laid her first egg! She actually laid her FIRST egg a few days ago, but it was rough-shelled and not as deeply colored. Today, she laid this beauty, pictured next to Nadine's egg from today:

Her first egg looked like all those speckles had been washed off except for in a couple patches, so it was more of a tan color. Needless to say, I was happy to find that was only a hiccup! These eggs are gorgeous!

Here's a brown egg spectrum from my flock! I labelled each egg in the picture because that's just easier. I'm not 100% sure that the one all the way to the right is Rooska's, but I think she's the only one who makes sense out of the hens who are laying right now. Anyway, here is the beautiful spectrum! Yes, Cazzie lays a fairly dark brown egg, too.

As a side note, Nadine's eggs have gotten slightly darker lately! Here's a side-by-side comparison of the egg she laid today (which is to the left) and one of her first eggs (to the right):

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I think either Echo or Tessa (or both?) has started laying, too, because I keep finding small white eggs in the nests. Both have gotten VERY red recently, so it really could be either (or both ).



Meanwhile, my mom and I went to the zoo today because tomorrow is the last day it's open for the season, and it was fun, as always. They got Vulturine Guinea fowl in recently, and I really wanted to see them before the zoo closed for the year, so that was enough of an excuse for us! Anyway, we walked the whole zoo, like we always do, but there was just one picture I took while there that I absolutely must share. I think the Black-Breasted Leaf Turtles were surprised to see us, call it a hunch.

Aaaanyway, I have Fall Break next week, which is supposed to be just Monday and Tuesday, but the professor of my only Wednesday class is out of town on Wed. as well, so I basically have the next week off except Thursday. I do have a big homework project due Thursday, and some pretty hefty homework due the Monday after next... so odds are pretty good I'll take some flock pictures over the weekend. We'll see what happens!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Here we go again! SIGH! Elda went into molt about a week ago and her crop seems bloated this morning. She's having a slightly heavier molt than she usually does and looks like she's gone through a blender, bald patches all over and feathers flying with every movement. I was hoping this would mean she wouldn't get herself all blocked up again, but alas. I'm going to give her today so that I can put the feed up overnight and confirm that her crop is not emptying, but it looks like I'll be bringing her in for the third time in as many molts. Oh, Elly! Time to look up my guide to the annual crop treatment!