Crazy day today.
Rocha and Cocoa went to the Enumclaw Auction. I didn't stay. As it was, I barely made it back to my van before losing it. It's hard to give away your pets. Rocha has become increasingly protective of his flock and biting me when I took them out of the brooder, or adding food, was becoming an everyday experience. Plus, it looked like both of them were finally growing saddle feathers. Rocha, despite the lighter colored comb, was more aggressive. And Cocoa's comb is bright red now, so I'm hoping I made the right call on both of them being cockerels.
Flock dynamics have changed dramatically. Without Rocha and Cocoa to challenge the big girls, things have been pretty quiet with the big girls and Blackie and Latte. We let Blackie and Latte free-range with the big girls for quite a few hours today. There was a little bit of chasing, but really, not much considering how many hours they were free-ranging together.
I installed a hardware cloth wall inside the big girls coop and Blackie and Latte are now inside their tiny section of the coop, with food and water, trying to get used to it before dark. Rhodie went up in the coop, looked inside and absolutely flipped out. DH even came outside and said "What is going on?" I'm sure the neighbors are wondering, too.
I'm curious to see how the first night in the coop is going to be.
We still believe Blackie is a boy, but we kept him to help us integrate Latte into the coop safely. She needs someone to snuggle up to, and Blackie has always been her snuggle partner. Cocoa and Rocha were pretty much inseparable, and Blackie and Latte the same. He'll probably go to auction early in January unless I can find a home for him.
We still don't know if Latte is a boy or a girl because she still is not fully feathered. She is developing extremely slow compared to the other three. We hope she's a girl.
The sweet little babies are doing great, don't mind being held by DH and I (the kids are not allowed to hold them). We ended up with 4 BCM chicks and 4 Olive Eggers. The Olive Eggers have a beautiful bright white strip growing in on edge of their wings. I can't wait to see how they feather out. They are so fun to watch. We read up on "feather sexing" and tried to feather sex them between 1 and 3 days old. IF (the big if) we did it right, it is possible we have 5 girls and 3 boys. Time will tell.
Have you guys seen the "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe" chick sexing videos. Aaaaagh!
Drives me crazy how they just toss the chicks around.
Well, I've got a ton of stuff to do. I have hundreds of posts to catch up on. Hopefully after Christmas I'll have a lot more down time. Have a good day everyone!
