Pipd's Peeps!

[drumstick diva]

Really love the look of silkied cochins.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

We go through similar stuff when temps go over 105 here. It too is usually a two or three day period of deadly heat.

Many here lose chickens on the very hot days

Yes, as scared as I get during these cold snaps, the heat scares me more, personally. We only get about week or two above 90° per year here, but there's a big difference between how they behave in the deep negative temps like recently and the sheer suffering they exhibit on those hot days in the summer.

Really love the look of silkied cochins.

Thanks, DD! Aren't they just the cutest?





So, how about a couple adventures since my last post? Since we had such a wet autumn, I wasn't able to get any dry soil put up as a backup for replenishing the girls' dust bath this winter. In recent weeks, it's looked pretty sad, empty and, well, occupied by more droppings than dirt. So, on the last feed run, I grabbed a bag of sand as a temporary filler for it. They've dust bathed in sand in the past, so I figured it would work.

This being a 50 pound bag, I went ahead and left the coop door open yesterday after scraping out the dust bath so that I wouldn't have to fumble with the door while trying to carry the bag from the back of the car to the dust bath. This, apparently, was an open invitation for the girls to come out and stretch their wings a bit. Yes, despite there still being snow on the ground, the girls were so desperate for a change of venue that they left the coop! And, of course, the most snow-free areas are where vehicles were parked during the snow storms, so naturally, they came right on out to the driveway with me. I grabbed a few pictures, but I only had my cell phone on me, so they aren't the greatest quality. It wasn't nearly all of them, but eventually about a quarter to a third of the flock came out to poke around in the snow and driveway. Here's the first, brave set:

Josephine seemed rather insistent that I let her into the car. "Just open it up and I can have us in Florida in no time..."

The Partridges headed around the coop to the rabbit hutch, where a lot of good picking is to be had, at least during the warmer months. Can't imagine they'd find much more than rabbit droppings now.

Here's Rangi just being sweet. Her frostbite occurred back in the winter of 2013-14, and thankfully she's had none since. Hopefully the boys and Myrna recover well and no longer have issues, just like her.

Speaking of Myrna, here's a bit of an update for her from yesterday. Her comb is starting to get wavy again! It's folded down a bit more than this as of this morning, too!

Now, no pictures for the next adventure, but this morning, things got a little more crazy in this madhouse! I kept the birds in one last night to be safe because we got close to freezing, and I really didn't want to risk re-freezing their frostbite. This morning, I gathered up Roscoe and the boys in a cat carrier and carried them out. The big boys, of course, cannot fit into a cat carrier, so I resigned myself to carrying them out one by one. I opened their cage and reached in, to a lot of shuffling to get away from me, of course, because why would they cooperate? At last, I managed to get ahold of Darwin, and that's when things got crazy.

Hearing him panic, Dante and Murphy rushed the cage door, and because I was wrestling with Darwin, I couldn't stop them. Suddenly, two very large roosters were wandering loose through the house. Quickly, I devised a plan--herd them to the door while carrying Darwin, open it up, and just let them all three walk out. Simple, right? Well, the stairs to the second floor are right by the foyer, and rather than avoiding them as I thought they all would, Dante and Murphy chose to start climbing them. A wave of my hand was enough to get Murph back at ground level, but panicked Dante, and he instead headed up the stairs. Please note that this is an open staircase, not an enclosed one. Yeah.

I got Murph and Dar to the door, opened it, and they both stood in the doorway as I turned around to get Dante. My sister, by then, had gotten up to help. I thought, okay, simple. She'll herd him back down the stairs and I'll wait at the bottom to herd him toward the door. What could go wrong? Well, I mentioned this being an open staircase for a reason. Dante, apparently seeing no other option, squeezed through the rail at the top of the stairs and FLEW across the living room into the thankfully UNlit fireplace!



Fortunately, after that he was feeling much more cooperative, and the other boys were clucking with concern, so he headed for the door after them.

There was more fun to be had outside with the ice that formed under the now-melting snow (particularly seeing those three boys ice skate their way back to their outside pen--and Darwin slip on his fluff bum while rushing toward the tantalizing sound of hens ), but all my birds are now back in their appropriate, outside pens.


Now, THAT's a long post! It's supposed to be nice and warm today, so here's hoping the snow melts away more and the girls get some more time to stretch their wings, and maybe have some pictures taken with the good camera.

 

[Cryss]

Yes, any of the boys who aren't staying will be going to Martins. So far, the two Mottled Cochin boys and two of the three Marans boys have tried their darnedest to earn their ticket there, too. And Lucky surprised me yesterday by rushing the fence at me and trying to peck my feet through it, so he may have just made a case for his ticket as well. I really only kept him because he was the least aggressive out of his brothers, and since I now have two more to pick from who are so far neither as friendly nor as aggressive as any of their older brothers were at this age, I have some hope that they'll be better behaved. If I can get them to flock up with their father so that I can pen them all together, I may keep both. But, of course, we still have some time before I can be sure their temperaments will be an improvement on their older brother's.

Sounds to me like your one Dom is doing the same thing as Mr. Orange band Mottled Cochin, so I definitely don't blame you on that. Purple band doesn't bite as much, but he sure likes to take threatening stances and hackle up at my feet as I walk by. Darn boys couldn't just behave so I could keep one of them!

I do have the pictures finally--now that they're a week out of date! Not sure what was going on with my computer, but it seems to have finally resolved itself, so it's working like usual now. You know, now that the summer semester is done! But still, I'm just glad it's working again! Anyway, here are the Silkied Cochin babies from last week, when they were 11 weeks old!

Mr. Blue Band:

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Mr. Pink Band:

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Little Roxanne

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The Mottled Cochin babies at 10 weeks old:

Blue band / Possibly Jasper? I don't know, I'm kind of rethinking that name choice now. I'm not sure why these babies have been so hard to name!

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Sweet li'l Ida.

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Mr. Orange Band. Notice how he's standing.

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Mr. Purple Band

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Green Band, now Vira, and her eyebrow

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And sweet little White Band, who I haven't come up with ANYTHING for yet!

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My sweet Dorkings, also at 10 weeks old:

Myrna. Such a lady!

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Kita, who didn't want to pose.

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And my Marans. They're 5 months old now, so they were about 4 months and 3 weeks old in these pictures, I guess? In numerical order from their 'baby numbers':

Un, the tailess wonder! So far the only one of the boys who's not a jerk!

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Vivienne, who's still solid black. I guess she's going to be a Black Marans?

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Josephine, our egg layer She's as difficult to take pictures of as her mother!

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Quatre, the biggest jerk of all!

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Mavis! Pretty sure she's going to be the next egg layer of the three.

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Six, who just recently started to behave like Quatre. At least they make it easier to make the choice about taking them to Martins.

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Hm, there aren't many posts left on this page, so why not? Here are the rest of the pics I took last weekend! (@Soon2BChixMom I'll put them in the album, too, so let me know if you get an alert for it. )

Josephine up close!

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Here's her 'nest' with an egg in it. If nothing else, her eggs sure are pretty!

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A closer pic of Vira's eyebrow. It just amuses me so much. Too bad these are juvenile feathers!

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Blue band and White band being cuties

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Ida is super serious!!

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Vira again, saying, "Where's the grub?!"

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I guess I took a lot of pictures of Vira! But look at those brows!!

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Lazy chickies sitting on the log again.

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And just a hand full of pictures of the big girls. Here is Ihi playing innocent about all those feathers. "Wasn't me!"

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A couple shots of Flury Floofle-Poofles.

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Elly says, "Drop the camera and make with the cuddles!"

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And finally, here is Merlin expressing how I felt last weekend, heading into finals for Physics.

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Just gorgeous

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Thanks. Oh, boy, those babies were young in that post!








Just a small update for y'all since I've been absent here for about a week... The snow did melt off last week, and it was a muddy mess for a day or two, and then everything froze solid again. About that time, I likely would have been out there with the camera, but I came down with a cold and it's really knocked me off my feet for the past few days. Now it's snowy again and clearly that's my fault, just ask the girls. Oh, well.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Sybil finally came back into lay, and I can hardly resist her teeny-tiny egg!!

This is it next to a Marans egg (pretty sure that's in the range of extra large) and one of the bantam Cochin eggs:

And in an egg carton next to the same Marans egg, just to show how eensy-weensy it is!

That means that babies will be coming soon!!

That's right, I can't resist the urge any longer! This egg seems a bit torpedo-ey, so I'm going to wait a few more eggs to see if it's just because it's the first of the season, but I should have the 'bator fired up by the end of the month for the possibility of little, tiny, eensy OEGB babies! I can't wait!!

 

[shadow rabbit10]

Can't wait to see the babies! Bantam chicks are so cute.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Me, too! Starting to wonder how successful this incubation is going to be, however. She hasn't laid an egg since, so I still just have this one lonely little egg... Might have to look into staggered hatching if I want to get very many chicks from her. I do have two incubators now, so I could easily use one as a 'hatcher' for a staggered hatch...

The alternative is to finally break down and buy some of the Silver Duckwing OEGBs they keep getting in at Rural King... They have a 6 chick minimum and usually only get 3 or 4 OEGBs in their mixed bantam batches, so I'd just have to get some Easter-eggers while I was at it, too, or maybe one of the other fancy breeds they sometimes have in...

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Up to two eggs from Sybil today! So, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with a staggered hatch for these babies. I'm going to try for a total of 6 eggs incubated. I'll be collecting them in groups of 3 and setting them all at once rather than as they're laid so that I don't have chicks hatching every 4 or 5 days for a month! I'm going to have to set these tiny eggies in the Octagon because they're WAY too small for the turner 'carriers' in the Ovation, so the Ovation can act as my hatcher when the first three eggs reach lockdown. I think it'll work.

I've seen Winston dancing for her, but haven't actually seen them breed. I'm hoping that these eggs are fertilized anyway. I suppose I could sacrifice that first egg and look at the blastodisc, although on this tiny of an egg I'm not sure if I'll be able to tell for sure.

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to prioritize Easter-eggers as the first thing I'm going to hatch after the OEGBs. I plan to put together an OEGB coop, so coop space isn't a factor for how many of them that I can hatch, but as I mentioned before, it is a factor for everyone else because I don't want to overcrowd the main coop. With my youngest EE going on 3 years old this year, and the rest of them 8 years old or older, I'm getting fewer and fewer blue and green eggs, so I'd like to get a few more EEs to re-balance my egg rainbow. So, this year's going to be an EE year for hatching. Will most likely be crossing my EE girls to one of the Dorking fellas, although I've also considered crossing them to Murphy the Marans for some potential Olive-Eggers...

Obviously, if I do end up breaking down and buying some OEGBs and a few Easter-eggers from Rural King, I'd opt to hatch a tiny batch something else then. Not sure what my second choice would be in that case, though I'm leaning more toward the Dorkings since I had no success with them last year...

Anyway, teeny babies to come!!

 

[Leahs Mom]

I'm curious...
I know that most bantams come in a mix to places like RK. Are you able to pick out black mottled bantam cochins from those bins...do you know the breed well enough to be able to tell what they are when they're chicks?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The Rural King I go to gets their chicks through Townline Hatchery. From their website, I know what breeds and varieties are possible in their mixed bantam orders. It's fairly easy to distinguish each of them as they all are fairly uniquely patterned. The Silver Duckwing OEGBs are the only chipmunk striped chicks possible in the bantam assortment from Townline. The 'Brown' OEGBs they list on their site are Brown Reds; the chicks resemble Black Copper Marans chicks, mostly black with a bit of white on the belly and face. Red Pyle babies look white. The rest of their bantams are either feather-legged or Sebrights, which have a very distinct appearance as chicks.

As far as the Mottled Cochins go, if I had to distinguish them from, say, pure Black Cochins or Silver Laced Cochins, which would most likely be the closest in appearance to them, I probably could... But I'm not sure I'd be confident enough to put money on it. I got the Mottled Cochins from Meyers, where they thankfully allow you to buy your bantams by breed instead of as an assortment if you want.