Straub’s search for colored eggs

[Mother of Chaos]

New layer today Mocha is 21 weeks old and finally decided to pay rent. She has been spending time looking in the nest boxes and singing the song of her people for the past few days this morning she finally laid one. I did catch her in the act so I know it was her. I was hoping for green but I’ll take brown.
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I believe molting season is here. It feels a little early but I guess dropping feathers now while it’s hot is better than when they wait to start in November and are completely naked in December. My whole run is covered with white feathers and I only have one white chicken. View attachment 4192308View attachment 4192309

We picked and processed our sweet corn earlier this week so the chickens have been enjoying picking the leftovers off the cobs. I have a large bag of them in the fridge and toss a few out each day for a cool treat in the heat.
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Very pretty egg!

 

[Tstraub]

Very pretty egg!

Thanks

 

[Tstraub]

Just a couple pictures of peanut along side one of the other Bresse chicks. Peanut is very active and runs around like the others but is growing very slowly. She(?) is eating and drinking nobody is chasing her away from the feed or water. She is finally starting to grow a couple real feathers hopefully she starts catching up. I’m not planning to keep her in as a breeder but if she eventually lays eggs I might let her join the breakfast egg girls. The bigger one is starting to get some blue color in her legs and feet. It’s hard to tell in the picture but I can see it in real life

 

[Tstraub]

The chicks are now 11 days old and I’m struggling with the thought of weather doing everything to save the one that was clearly not healthy at hatch was the right decision. It’s still not growing, it walks around and does the normal chicken things but it’s not growing and doesn’t appear to have anything to offer moving the flock forward. It doesn’t seem to be in any pain or struggling to survive so I plan to just continue treating it like the rest for now.

I just think I need to consider where my goals really are. I’m I raising pets or am I breeding for improvement. I know the feed and housing cost of raising this chick is not a significant percentage of my total cost of the flock but as I scale things up I’ll have to make decisions differently. Attached is a picture of the largest cockerel? and the runt named peanut.

The cockerel has a scab on his left wattle not sure if he scraped it himself or one of the others pecked him. He has been doing the chest bumps with one of the suspected olive egger cockerels.

 

[Tstraub]

My sweet corn did really well this year and I have plenty of leftovers after filling the freezer so I picked a couple ears for the chickens. I tried letting Smoky and her littles out in the fenced area with the rest of the chickens today. Most of the chickens ignored the babies Smoky chased off anyone that got too close without incident. The only issue I faced is that the chicks are still small enough to fit through the fence netting and they would exit the fence but couldn’t figure out how to get back inside with momma hen. I helped them back inside a couple times. It all went well but it’s going to be another week or so before I feel comfortable letting them out unsupervised.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

My sweet corn did really well this year and I have plenty of leftovers after filling the freezer so I picked a couple ears for the chickens. I tried letting Smoky and her littles out in the fenced area with the rest of the chickens today. Most of the chickens ignored the babies Smoky chased off anyone that got too close without incident. The only issue I faced is that the chicks are still small enough to fit through the fence netting and they would exit the fence but couldn’t figure out how to get back inside with momma hen. I helped them back inside a couple times. It all went well but it’s going to be another week or so before I feel comfortable letting them out unsupervised.

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Mama looks like she’s got her wings full!

 

[Tstraub]

Mama looks like she’s got her wings full!

She raised 6 in March without any problems and asked for more this time so I gave her 8. She’s keeping them in line better than I can do. I just love watching a good Broody do her thing. They break all of the rules and somehow the chicks seem healthier than when I stress about every little thing in the brooder.

 

[Tstraub]

Just when I thought everything was going well I have a feather picker on my hands Ugg.

I painted the injury blue with hen healer cream and brought the bully outside and asked Smoky if she would keep an eye them. I believe she agreed now I’m sitting by the brooder and watching for additional issues.