The New Flock 2021: Back to Basics

[oldhenlikesdogs]

The cochin boys sometimes make me angry with their antics, but than they go running away in their little footie pajamas and I have to laugh. Only breed I can't put in the freezer. I just keep collecting them. I usually have a few running about. They mix well with the standard hens and are devoted little roosters to their hens.

 

[getaclue]

I'm back from my excursion to the hospital. Not good news. I've got an appointment with my Oncologist on Wed morning. A bright spot is that my Covid test was negative. Thank you all for the prayer support.

 

[speckledhen]

Cheryl, I'm so sorry to hear that you'll be going through all that again. What a bummer. I'm glad you hang out with us on the Atlas thread. You are an integral part of this group and I know we all value your posts.
Lisa, I may have called the sexing 100% wrong on those chicks! Made that judgement a couple of days too soon, I bet. I took them outside with Cricket today. The blue one already has shoulder feathers coming in and a long tail and won't even be 2 weeks old until Monday, even though it has a larger comb than the splash. The splash could go either way, but the teensy, almost non-existent comb may have a twinge of deeper yellow in it so that could be another splash male. I was hoping the blue would be a pullet, if I had to have a pair. If they could both be pullets, that would be ideal, of course, but at the very least, I'll be happy to eat my words on the blue being male! The splash still hasn't figured out dustbathing, LOL.
I completely agree about the bantam Cochin roosters working out great with the big hens. Xander never had a bantam hen, only the big Blue Orps, a Delaware and others far larger than he was. He was a great disciplinarian with the young Brahma cockerel groups, too, my "Munchkin Dictator". I missed him a lot when he died so that's why I decided that these were going to be my roosters from now on. I just adore them.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I'm so sorry @getaclue . Prayers for you. I cannot imagine going through all that stuff again. Prayers for strength, and for hope.

I'm hoping you have 2 little pullets Cynthia.

 

[speckledhen]

Went to the barn to check on Cricket and put the Brahmas back in their pen. Found a huge rat snake lounging under their wall-mounted nests. Not being confident that I could get it out without losing it in the barn or having it get near Cricket's chicks, I yelled for my husband over the baby monitor to come quick. He grabbed it and took it outside, but as he was getting a grip on the head, one of the fangs scraped the back of his hand, close call. I know rat snakes aren't poisonous, but those fangs have been impaled in prey and we don't need that getting infected so I made sure he disinfected the scrape well. I have no idea if this is the same rat snake that was after the phoebe chicks or the rat snake that was sticking its head out from the closed roll-up door track a couple of weeks back and drew back into the barn when I saw it. This one seemed much larger than the one that we rescued the phoebe chicks from, though. Yuck, I hate snakes around my chickens! Today and that time two weeks ago were the first times ever we've had a snake actually get into the coops in 17 years other than the time that Bonnie caught a baby rat snake and, in playing keepaway with her sisters, ran into the barn and lost it in her pen. I can't have snakes around my two week old chicks!!

 

[getaclue]

I don't care for snakes either. While I don't run kill everyone of them I see, they'd better take off, and get far away from me when they see me, OR ELSE. Any snake I catch in my coop, isn't going to survive the experience. They tend to be territorial, and when just removing them from the coop (food source), I find they tend to return. We have enough snakes around here, that I'm not worried about them becoming in short supply, or anything.

Even the little one that managed to get into the screened patio, I got the pool net, and put it back outside. I do try to have respect, and get along with nature around here, but there are a few limits.

 

[speckledhen]

Tom walked it out way behind the garden and gave it a good hard toss over the fence toward the neighbor's property. I hope it doesn't come back. If it does, it won't live to tell it's slithery friends about the fun it had here. I'm can't risk Cricket's two chicks.
This has really been the year of the pest, I swear.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I'm terrified of snakes. Husband tosses them. I'd prefer they never return.

 

[speckledhen]

New pictures! The two will be two weeks old tomorrow. So, Lisa, especially, call the sexes for me from your vast bantam Cochin experience. I still think I have a pair, but I think the blue one is a pullet (yippee!) and the splash is a cockerel. The things that throw me off are that the blue has a larger comb as well as a more upright stance than the splash, but is far more feathered out than the other one. If the splash was a pullet, that would be great, too, because those boys need more girls their own size. Here they are today, plus two of the potential daddies, Bodie and Magnus. The blue one has to be buff x splash or vice versa or it would be splash like the other one, of course.
Bodie

Magnus

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Generally in the next 2 weeks if any are cockerel they will start to get those red combs. It can be hard to tell until than. They are both well feathered, sometimes you can tell by that, but it isn't totally reliable. I'm still hoping on 2 pullets. Should know soon.