[The Shire] Our growing flock!

[newchickychick]

Separations during the day really helped. The Cochin has tried messing with one of the meat bird crosses and it did NOT work out well for the Cochin (nothing hurt but his pride) and that certainly calmed him down overall.

They’re really starting to slow down already and it makes me so sad. They’re 6 weeks old now. </3 I’m hoping getting them to the coop soon helps.

Cackle had some Turkens come available… since we’re potentially losing the 4 and still have plenty of space, well… I ordered 5 sexed females. Silkies for our Bantam broodies and Turkens for our standard broodies would be nice! Plus they’re cute. So cute!

I can most definitely tell which Silkies are from Cackle and which are from Ideal. The black one we’ve got from Cackle is a hoot. The gray one is so sweet. Still side-eyeing the definitely likely a cockerel Bantam we’ve got. I’m sure it’s some type of OEGB but maybe a Japanese? Either way, precious and super active.

Today is naming day until hubby is home to work on the coop with me. So many names to give, so little time! It looks like a short day at work for him which really will help us get a huge hunk done. Tomorrow he has off for the funeral and he plans to work once we’re home. I’m going to take the day to R&R so today will be my official “nesting bars and coop enrichment building” day. We want to have plenty of spots for perching and line of sight breaks to help chickens hopefully feel safer in case of scuffles/disagreements while in the coop for the night. And less bored!

 

[newchickychick]

Woah! We had three Bantam Cochins (we’d ordered 5 frizzles) start showing their frizzling pretty early on - two reds and a white or two whites and a red. I was amazed that with a 50% chance we got that lucky. Today I noticed a black (likely Cochin) is showing frizzling!

The only bummer is we don’t want to have to separate all the Bantams to avoid frazzle. Our plan was several small to medium coops in one large run. We may just avoid hatching or letting broodies with the Bantams hatch anything that has the potential to be from a frizzle pullet if we get pullets and cockerels.

Or we may just designate another area for Bantams as well and bite it so we can let broodies have plenty of egg access without having to worry about whose is whose, as we definitely would not let frizzle x frizzle hatch eggs. We will figure it out. It’s something we will have to keep in mind potentially for our standards pen, as we HOPEFULLY will have some frizzle Polish soon. Found a wonderful breeder here that’s rather local and I’m traveling end of the month to get a stunning cockerel and 5 other Polish chicks (manifesting at least one frizzle!) from her. we’ve decided to name the cockerel Appa! My son will be so ecstatic.

Definitely the good thing about plenty of land - we can add more coops as we need to.

Ridiculously exited to travel to get those babies and to get the Turkens and our other Top Hat/Rare special order. The Polish have had such fun personalities so far, all very different but sweet and fun. Though I think we’ve got two females and two males based on head poofs vs. mohawks so far, but there’s still plenty of time for things to change and develop. Though as far as backyard mix babies go in the future, I would never mind having a bunch of little toupee chickens running about ahaha.

Our windows for the coop got here late today too! So excited to get those in! Soon… I can’t wait to post pics of it finished and videos of everyone running around in it. Hubby helped me logistic the roosting bar ladder out REALLY well. I’ve never even sawed something before today (sad, I know!) but I got the hang of it quickly. It was a lot of fun!