[The Shire] Our growing flock!

[Mother of Chaos]

Hello sweet Orpingtons! Welcome to the flock!
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Hi, little cheepies!

 

[newchickychick]

They're soooo sweet! We absolutely love our Orpingtons so much. Salsa (one of our buffs) ZOOMS out to greet us when we come to the run. All the Orpingtons!

Hi, little cherries!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

They're soooo sweet! We absolutely love our Orpingtons so much. Salsa (one of our buffs) ZOOMS out to greet us when we come to the run. All the Orpingtons!

Edited my reply to fix my phone’s auto-corrupt

 

[newchickychick]

Cherries works too! They're round little things.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Cherries works too! They're round little things.

iPhones need to have a setting for chicken-speak. I was once asking someone about their breedstock, and it came out “breadstick.”

 

[newchickychick]

Breadsticks, in the phone's defense, are necessary too.

Out of the 8 eggs that made it into lockdown (1 Ayam Cemani, 7 Orpingtons)... all 8 have hatched! It's day 21 NOW so I am going to set the temperatures back to 99.5 as they've been at 100, and always hatching day 19-20. I wonder if the govee was reading the 'low' fluctuations from the forced air, but we'll see.

Got our Deathlayers set up for lockdown! We've got Silvers, Golds, a Pavlovskaya (sadly the second one quit recently, argh. The first one we'd hatched had cross-beak and the second one of the first batch too'd quit late in development), a Bresse, and a couple more Buff Laced Polish (as we'd had a handful of non-developers/early early quitters from the batch that hatched the other day so I wanted to be sure we got... one. Now we'll be over-run with Buff Laceds ). 21 eggs, whoof! We'll see how it pans out.

 

[thistlewick]

My Brinsea kept reading low room temp, even though the room temp was 74 - because it was NEAR-ish an AC vent that was on the ceiling (10 foot ceilings at that) lol

They are just really good at their job!

I never changed it from 99.5 and had 14/16 hatch

can't wait to see how it goes - congrats on all the successful hatches!

 

[newchickychick]

My Brinsea kept reading low room temp, even though the room temp was 74 - because it was NEAR-ish an AC vent that was on the ceiling (10 foot ceilings at that) lol

They are just really good at their job!

I never changed it from 99.5 and had 14/16 hatch

can't wait to see how it goes - congrats on all the successful hatches!

Thanks so much! I was so anxious it was too cold but seeing them ALL hatch day 20… yeah, that extra 0.5 may be doing too much. Especially with some chickies having had issues. I was told shipped eggs can cause deformities, but if a little extra time in their shell helps at all, I want to go that way. They’re all SO sweet! We’re having just the best time with chickens. Even though the tough parts.

 

[newchickychick]

Whoof, it's been one heck of a busy time period. All is well! We're working bit by bit on getting the full roof on the run and we're working on a permanent run for the Bantams.

Appa integrated SO smoothly! He was see-no-touch for a month and a half, probably longer, but we were admittedly overly cautious as it was our first time introducing and he was used to only-boys and we have several other cockerels with that group who have grown up with their ladies.

A LOT of the combs are starting to get really red in the big coop... just in time for feather casings to be all over? At first I was terrified it was lice/mites, then fearful it was worms, but it's not either. They just seem to have a lot of... dandruff? It's little feather casing bits? Everywhere. I'm sure there's the potential it's for the upcoming cooler months so they can be feathered in time for winter. (I hope, at least!) But no lethargy at all, no signs of actual worms anywhere, and nothing crawling around their vents or on them at night. So I'm leaning towards 'molt preparation.'

In other news, we just had a little Indio Gigante chick hatch! Hubby really, really wanted a go with them and out of 5 eggs, it looks like another one will hatch at least. Shipping on eggs here has been crazy rough lately. I'd had some really really nice hatches this year and there was a three week period where absolutely nothing developed or made it past a week and a half. I thought surely it must be me and the incubator. Looks like it was just shipping, as we've now got our TRULY final batch incubating and doing really well! Icelandics and a couple more Bantam cochins.

Everyone's been so happy! Salsa is still my star chicken. She loves hanging out and will hop up on my lap for cuddles any time I sit on the chair out there with them.

The three barred rock cockerels we were "absolutely going to get rid of so we could introduce our oldest pullets to the big coop"? Yeah, they're all 3 still here. They're ALL gentlemen. Which, considering is 3 boys and 9 girls in there, I was extremely worried about that ratio.
No bare backs or necks despite them definitely mating, no feather plucking, no actual squabbles. One is intent on being the lookout, and is crowing pretty much 24/7 but thankfully either our neighbors can't hear or don't care (since we're far enough away anyhow to where it should be super quiet - I can barely hear in our house here). He sounds the alarm when a hawk flies overhead (bless having protection over our runs), and is the last to try to eat once everyone else has had their share. He'll tidbit for the ladies, do a little dance for them, and has never once tried to circle around me.
The second one's intent on being a lady's man, always tidbitting for them and doing his little shuffle dances. He also calls the ladies up to the nesting boxes, and 'looks for danger' in there before he waits right outside for them to finish up laying their eggs. The third is good about tidbitting too, and seems to be the 'watch things from afar' type. Not a single one has lunged at any of us, circled us, or shown a single sign of aggression. Though I know this can change at ANY time, I'm pretty happy they're now 6 months old and all getting along so well.
Our plan now is to instead try to integrate them ALL. I know it can be a challenge, as these 3 are used to being the only guys for the last 1-2 months now (since we culled the last few other cockerels), and they've got their own pecking order, but there's LOTS of room in the big coop and run, and we plan to take it slowly. They've been see-no-touch for about 2-3? months now with the big coop, so we'll at least try it. If there's any signs it just won't happen well, we'll just end up building them their own little coop elsewhere to free up the 'integration coop', and let them live solo with their 9 ladies so long as peace remains! They'll probably get some free-ranging privileges while we're home too as they've done it a couple times when we were moving things around and couldn't have them in the coop. Here I thought we were headed for disaster with how the other cockerels were, and they're (so far, and hopefully stay that way...) really really great towards the ladies and respectful to us.