Pipd's Peeps!

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Hope you all had a relaxing day yesterday!

My incubator's running steady as of this morning, so we are ready, set, go on the first batch of the year! Approximately 21 days until babies!!

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Hope you all had a relaxing day yesterday!

My incubator's running steady as of this morning, so we are ready, set, go on the first batch of the year! Approximately 21 days until babies!!

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Can't wait to see these chicks!

I'm still having issues with my guys. I separated Rebel to confinement the last few days to give Cheddar some regular chicken time. If Cheddar gets out of the coop before I get out there, they tend to start brawling. Cheddar gets very tired as his comb gets paler. So, I worry even if the fighting is not resulting in blood. Lately he has been retreating, but Rebel is not. Maybe I should have chosen a different name for him.

I learn a lot from you. If I go silent, it's just because I fell off for a bit, but not because I don't want to read all about your adventures.

Sorry about Morena.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Sorry to hear that your boys are (/were?) still being butts, Maizie! Sometimes it can be so frustrating to have multiple males together.





Y'all, I am now done with the semester! Officially the last day is tomorrow, but I've turned everything in and gotten my final grades back for all of them. Straight A's again. This puts me in a very strong position for getting into the dental hygiene program, which is exciting, but of course I'm remaining reserved until I actually receive notice that I'm in. That was a lot of work, but will hopefully be worth it in the end!

I have so many pictures and a few updates, but I'm pretty wiped because I was trying to get some things done today that I'd been putting off, and I may have over-done it after the last 9-ish months of not being as active while I focused on school. So, I'll work through pictures and updates in the morning after a good night's rest.


For now, I'll leave y'all with an update on the eggs: 15 went in, 6 were clears, 1 super early quitter, and 8 went into lock down yesterday. The clears are not a big surprise because I realized part way through collecting the eggs that Gus III had a big clump of poo in his vent feathers that was probably impeding him breeding his girls, and the dates on the clear eggs track with about the date I trimmed that off, so fertility actually looks really good from them despite the early clears. And I'm already seeing draw down and potentially some internal pips in our 8 locked-down eggies, so peeps are on the way!!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Okay, it's still technically morning here

First of all, I woke up to an air-breather in the incubator this morning!

I grabbed that picture and thought, okay, I'll get the coops opened and get the birds all fed, eat breakfast, and then hop on to post that. Well, middle of my bowl of cereal, I thought I heard peeping coming from upstairs, so I went to check and... The above little one is already out! Talk about an early bird!

So, I had to scramble to get the EcoGlow cleaned up and warming up already! There are 4 more eggs with external pips, so hopefully the little one will have a buddy to make the move to the brooder with before too much longer.

The other thing that took me forever this morning was broodies out in the mixed flock. Now, 3 days ago I set Freia up with a nest and gave her 7 eggs to sit on.

I thought she was taking breaks on her own because the food dish I had for her was knocked over the evening after I set her up. However, this morning, I sort of realized I hadn't seen any droppings or anything, so I pulled her from the nest for her to take a forced break. Come to find out she'd let loose in the back of the nest box at some point and was just sitting in it

I debated for a bit whether I should just put her in broody jail and let Opal take over since Opal is broody and she knows what she's doing, but I decided I'd give Freia a second chance and see how things look tonight or tomorrow morning before I decide to cut her off from potential motherhood At least one of her eggs is developing, so hopefully the big dropping stewing in there with those eggs won't have contaminated them and ruined the whole batch.

In the mean time, Opal is ready for eggs, so I set her up a secluded place to brood and had to jump through some hoops to convince her that it was an acceptable place to hatch eggs. In a little while, I'll check on her again and see if she's settled in well, and then more eggs will go under her.

However, that took about an hour past my usual morning chicken chores, and with scrambling to get the EcoGlow set up, well, that's why I'm only just getting on to post now!


ANYWAY, so how about a few updates!

First, the sad part. We had a bit of a heat wave last week, up in the 80's Fahrenheit, and I had left the outer coop birds locked in their coop while I was in class as I was still worried about that mink attack back at spring break. Sadly, it must have gotten too warm too quickly, as Zoe was lying dead in there when I got home. Poor Wyatt is down to 4 hens now.

Hector also passed away in the last couple weeks, poor guy. He just had a lot of issues and, honestly, I didn't really expect him to last very long with all of that going on.

Editing here because I did forget to mention one other loss. Ottilie disappeared a couple weeks ago. Completely vanished without a trace. I'm not sure if she wandered too far from the coop and got snatched by something, if she went broody somewhere out in the woods that I couldn't find and was killed there, or whatever else could have happened. But Otter is gone. I find these kinds of losses to be the worst because I spent days searching around for any trace of her, wondering where she went, wondering if I could have prevented this, and I still have no closure as to what happened to her. She's just gone and that's all there is to it.

Other than that, not much has happened with the flock. We've just been keeping on until summer break hit!

So, on to those pictures. I apologize in advance if there are any repeats!

Here's Freia before she went broody:

A little free-range time out in the woods. It's so much greener out there now!! And no, no one would sit still for a picture

Birch fast asleep with his head tucked between himself and one of the unnamed Splash girls I've got to say, he's quickly becoming one of my favorite roosters I've had in my mixed flock.

Freia again, pre-broody spell, just being a cutie

Sterling and his girls at the watering hole one morning

A close-up of Trixie

A lovely shot of Gwenyth, who... sigh... has now also gone broody before I could collect any eggs from her.

The corner coop birds (parents of the chicks hatching right now!) yelling at me for taking their picture in bed one evening Duckling is the hen yelling, then Gus III in the middle and Priscilla on the right.

A close-up of Pete, too I have a sneaking suspicion based on how he's been acting that Pete may be going blind.

A broody unnamed hen brooding the perch after I'd removed her from the nest one evening

And lastly, some nest box shenanigans. 8 nest boxes, 9 hens. Myrna, the Dorking in the first picture (2nd box from the left), was on top of one of the poor Cochin girls

And I think that's it from my coops for now! Lots more to come in the following months with all the free time I'm bound to have!!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Second baby is out

Looks like a third one is on the way as it looked like it was zipping, and there are 4 others that have pipped externally now, so the incubator is hopping!!



Also, Opal decided she did NOT like where I had set her up, so I had to do some rearranging and haven't been able to put eggs under her yet.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

2 more just hatched one after the other! They were all piling on one another and I couldn't get a good shot of the newest two, so I went ahead and pulled the oldest two and got them leg banded and under the EcoGlow. Look at those faces

...But then I forgot to take a picture of the two that just hatched, so...

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The remaining 4 eggs have hatched, the last one at around 2am The eight of them are cozied under their EcoGlow now as they finish their yolks and get their land legs.

Here are the middle three that I moved to the brooder last night:

And the youngest three that moved to the brooder this morning. Unfortunately, this was the best shot I got of them because my cat decided he wanted to investigate, so I had to sweep them up and get them to the brooder real quick after this

I'll get better pictures of them once they've all fluffed a bit more. They're awfully stinking cute! All told, I think I only got 2 or 3 Black and the rest of them are Blues.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Some slightly more fluffed-out peeps! This was yesterday during our first eating and drinking lesson. I had one peep in hand trying to dip her beak when another one just bobbled right over and started drinking like a natural So, I guess they've got the idea!

I still haven't decided if there are 3 Blacks and a really dark Blue or if I'm evenly split on Blues and Blacks with this group.

Shortly after this, sadly, my 12 year old Brinsea EcoGlow 20, the original unit I got to try out and never looked back on using heat lamps in the brooder again, stopped working. On closer inspection, the wire had become brittle with old age and detached from the unit when I moved it to get to the peeps. So, I had to switch them to my EcoGlow Safety 1200 until the smaller Safety 600 I've ordered to replace the old 20 gets here. They are content with this, but because of the lower edges on the Safety models, we've already had a peep on top of it now, who promptly panicked because she couldn't find her buddies once she was up there

I also tried to get a decent shot of them lined up like I try to do with every batch, but they were still so, so sleepy after their exhausting hatch...

Here's a pretty little bright-eyed Blue baby in my hand, though

In flock news, after the incident with Freia the other day, I've been pulling her out to make her take a break every day. Well, along with this, I've noticed that her crop has been pretty bloaty and not emptying well like Opal's does between breaks. Out of concern for her health, this morning I decided it was for the best to remove her eggs to the incubator and put her in broody jail. This was pretty heartbreaking because she's been so dedicated to those eggs, and she returned to her empty nest between me taking the eggs inside and getting back to set up her broody jail. However, I'd rather sacrifice her chance of experiencing motherhood right now than risk her dying of a crop issue while brooding. Here's her giving me her big, sad eyes from broody jail once all was said and done, poor gal

I considered grafting some of the chicks in the brooder to her, but I think she needs to get out of broody mode and back to normal for now. Hopefully next time she tries things will go better.

 

[2ndTink]

Your chicks are so incredibly cute as usual

I'm sorry to hear of your losses as well, those are never easy to deal with, and HUGE congratulations on the successful completion of your school year!

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Congrats on finishing with straight A's. Prayers and good thoughts you get into the program. It's crazy to think you already have chicks that hatched!
Sorry to hear about your losses.
I let everyone out to free range on Monday. Things with the roosters seemed to be going well. They were out for quite awhile before they decided to zone in on one another and not give up. My issue is, I'm fine with separating, but I will be leaving in a few weeks and will be gone for a few weeks. That leaves others in my household to care for the birds. They prefer not to mess with the drama. So, I will have to set something up for Cheddar to roost in at night and easy to access. Or I have to rehome.

Here's a funny for ya - one night I didn't get out before dark. Cheddar had been in his pen area and I planned on just putting him in the coop when I got home. Well, I get out there and he's nowhere that I can see. It is dark. I have motion lights - but the batteries need replaced, so they are pretty dim. I'm looking everywhere while getting things put away for the evening and then I spot him on top of the main coop. Now, this thing is at least 6-7' high. His pen is at least 4' high with a fabric covering over it. I was flabbergasted that he was able to get up so dang high for a ground bird - Little ball of Cheddar cheese that he is. I drag out a step stool and finally am able to get him off of the top of the coop without having to drag out the actual ladder.
So, then I check my cameras. At dusk he got pretty panicky and wanted to go to roost in the coop. Right before I got out there he managed to scramble up the side of the pen, through an open area where the fabric doesn't cover which isn't very wide, and then onto the railing that separates the ducks from the chickens. Then, he leapt onto the top of the coop. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't of seen it. He was probably watching me panic trying to find him and figure out where he went in a dang secured area. Any farther up and he would have been roosting with Rebel! The instinct to roost is strong with this one!