Pipd's Peeps!

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Oh that's okay. I figured you missed me hogging your thread.
"Cheddar" is doing well. I think he chases after all the ladies. They just run away. The only one I've seen him with is Lemon.
I left the light off for the Littles over night. I'm just worried about that 29° coming up, but they are all feathered, so they should do fine. They are definitely ready - the cochin boy is always standing at the front looking at me and I feel he is saying, "I know there is more to life out there...."

Nah, don't worry about posting here as much as you feel like! I don't have a lot to post about right now anyway, so the thread's kinda dead otherwise. We are almost to lockdown on one of the batches of eggs in the incubator, though, so that will probably change soon.

That's funny on Cheddar, those girls just aren't taking him seriously! And the little (relatively speaking) Cochin guy, too! Sounds like they're quite the characters!

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Can't wait to see your hatchlings!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I'm excited for them, too! I still need to set up the brooder for them, though I suppose I have plenty of time still.



Ah, I hate to take away from the chick chat, but I just found Neela in the coop dead. She's never been quite right, even all the way back as a baby herself. Weaker, smaller, pushed around. Honestly, I figured I was losing her last year when she had lost the use of her legs and the other birds had pecked her head open. But somehow she made it through that and made a full recovery. Lately I'd noticed she was staying back in the coop, sitting a lot, and avoiding everyone, but nothing was outwardly wrong with her. Poor gal. I don't think anything I could have done would have changed this outcome, though. She just had issues.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

How old was Neela? Sorry for your loss.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Not very old at all, she would have been 2 in July. She was one of the chicks in the great car breakdown saga of 2021, where I was stuck at a rest stop for most of a day with a box of chicks and no way of keeping them warm short of sitting outside in the 90° weather. Way too young to have died under normal circumstances, in other words.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

How are the rest of those chickens doing? 90° seems warm enough. I do remember that.
What breed was she?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Everyone else is acting normal and completely fine, other than that Harley and Trixie both have very minor injuries from being too sassy with larger hens than them. And yeah, the chicks were content in the 90+° sunshine, but I sure wasn't! But of course I couldn't leave them unattended out there, so I had to take them in to the air conditioned rest stop for breaks every now and then, which upset them because they were too cold in there. That was also the day when my sister had to drive out and get us, and then she took a wrong turn going home so we went about an hour out of our way and got home after dark and I had had hens out in the broody buster that's literally just a loop of fence in the middle of the chicken yard so not secure against raccoons and other nocturnal predators. Yes, I still have a strong memory of that day!


Neela was a Blue Orpington. Pretty girl that she was. I do still have Izzy, the other Blue Orp I got that day, but Izz has never been a people chicken like Nee was, of course.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

An experience that you will never forget, I'm sure!

She was a pretty one.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Lock down for the first two eggs! About 3 days to babies!!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]