New 6 Minute Video

Good Morning Chics!

This is a breakfast time video I took when I went out to un-foul their water dish. I have to do this 3-4 times a day! Silly birds. If you watch the left upper corner, you can see Red peeking in to see what he can see. Enjoy all the little chirps!

This just in. . .

Was thinking that maybe a pic of mom and dad would be interesting. Mom is a Silver Duckwing Standard Phoenix (foreground) and dad is a Bantam Rhode Island Red (middle). Our missing Lavender Bantam Chic is in the background. 

ahh chic is in the background. i miss her.

 

A short video of the chiclettes, well 2 or 3 out of 7 of the chics.

Ken Update

I noticed yesterday that Ken is babying a foot and limping a bit. I picked him up and found that the battle for Chic was more fierce than I had originally thought. Ken who was almost scalped in the fight also lost a toe on his right foot! Poor baby.

Baby Pictures

Babies

Cheep

 After about a week and a half, these babies are chirping up a storm.

They get underfoot, on top of mom, under wing, and are very snug and happy just
hiding.

See their new wing feathers!

7 Days Later

I can see 6 chicks in this photo

We now have at least 7 chicks bustling about the coop. Both moms are apparently sharing duties. Three eggs were abandoned in Rita's nest. I'm thinking they have to be the 3 eggs I accidentally dropped in the straw. So sorry Rita, we are both sad.  But, 7 out of a possible 10 on the first hatch. . . NOT BAD! I learned alot that's for sure. Now we wait for the big day when I feel safe enough to let them out of the coop.

Abandoned Eggs In Rita's Nest

Bad News. . .Good News

Ken N Chic

Let's start with the bad news. Chic is still AWOL. There is no sign that she ever lived here except for the tiny egg in the fridge that she layed 3 days ago. No blood, no feathers, no fluff, no body. I am so sad that she is gone.

Now on to the good news. I went out to the coop this morning and. . . OH NO! Nita is out of her nest and only one egg remains with a little hole in it and some broken shells. My god, no one survived! But again it's a case of no fluff, no bodies. I am very sad and putting all my hope on Rita who is still sitting on her eggs and in her nest. I tucked the abandoned egg from Nita's nest under Rita and went off to get water for Red.





Louis is a bit aggressive this morning. He always tries to peck my shoes or my hands. Since dropping a few pounds, he's become quite the runner too! Watch your back whenever you're in chicken yard.







 Anyway, back to the good news. I went back to the coop to check on the girls water before going in the house to get ready for work. . . opened the coop door. . . and surrounding Nita are 3 of the cutest chicks I've ever seen!

 

Three darling chicks

Four darling chicks

There water was full of straw, so I went to get more to refill the fount. I opened the door again and to my amazement there are 4 Darling Chicks! So all 5 eggs are accounted for! What a great day.

Will let you know how it goes with Rita and her brood.

This just in. . .

Nita

Rita

The Duplex

Rita and Nita went broody a couple of weeks ago. Well first Rita went broody and I marked my calendar for April 3 (21 days later). Then I thought Nita was still laying eggs in the same nest (they all share the same one). Being a novice chickeneer, I thought Nita was laying and leaving. I realized a couple days into this process that she wasn't leaving. They were both staying in the nest. Nita was all scrunched up in the very front of the bucket. Hmmm. . . two hens. . . , how many eggs are in there? Really not knowing what to do, I began my internet search.

Rita

I found tons of information about how hens go broody, how to break broodiness, how to incubate eggs in a warmer, and how to candle eggs. Candleing an egg gives the chickeneer, me, the ability to peek inside the eggs! I found that other chickeneers have run into this shared nest problem too. If there are too many eggs, one can get pushed out from under the warmth of mom's breast for lack of room, cool, and then get recycled back under mom which causes another to be pushed out to cool. It can become a terrible mess. A dead egg doesn't smell very good when its broken open by a misstep from one of the hens.

Nita

 

Deciding that the girls needed separating and the eggs needed to be candled, I solicited help from Nancy to try and see if we could successfully seperate the twins. So yesterday, day 12, I solicited help from Nancy, brought the old abandoned double nest into the house, and with a little alteration to the coop, cutting the wires holding the perch, got the “tidy cat bucket nest” out and took it into the house too.

Inside the "brooder"

We sat knee to knee on lawn chairs. I reached under the girls to get the eggs and Nancy fired up the flashlight. One by one we ooohed and ahhhhed each egg. Some could be seen moving a little, others not so much. We counted 4 under Nita, and having looked at each one to be sure it was viable, placing each one gently into the right nest, I gathered her up and plopped her into the right side of the duplex too. Next we counted 7 eggs under Rita. Sadly, one wasn't alive. I put 5 in the left nest, plopped Rita in on top of those, and slipped the extra egg under Nita in the right nest. Now they each have 5 chicks to care for. From what I read they won't know the difference in number.

Nita was all turned around and comfy cozy facing out from her new nest in just a short time while Rita stayed with her tail feathers sticking out til the next day.

Gma is Eggs-sitting this week!

Lets wish her luck and happy birding. She has a new charge named Louie. He's my Christmas present from Nik this year. He's big. He's white. And he's on a diet, so his legs don't break under all his weight.
The new girls are doing great and are laying productively. Chic lays a tiny one occasionally. Red is quarantined cause he's so big I'm afraid he'll hurt those little girls. And Chic runs away from him and hides in fear for her life. Ken is the king of his domain of course.

Awww . . . : (

Chic got off her eggs today and went with the other ladies to scratch around in the neighbors yard. I canceled the event from my calendar. I collected six cold eggs out of the nest. I'm a little sad that she's not sitting on any eggs, but glad that she's not sitting because its cold out.

Day One -

Chick has two eggs beneath her. One could be hers, but the other is definitely one of the other girls' eggs. I Gathered two eggs today but I didn't pay attention to whose they were. Now Chick has gone broody! I have circled December 6 as the 21 day mark for gestation. Hope things go better this time. All the eggs I've gathered in the past few weeks. Each one about the size if a Tablespoon.

Four in One

Wow! My first collection of four eggs all in one day. I think one girl is an early layer. And the other three lay later in the day, but deliver by 2:00pm. Yahoo!

New egg in town!

One of the new girls has started laying today! One regular egg from Mona & Jack's girls, one of Chics eggs, and the new egg in town. So tiny.

More than eggs...

The big news is: Chic is laying eggs again after the sad loss of her four lil chics.

Ken is ...well Ken. And we have 4 more chickens in our backyard crew. Jaydin has named them Bella, Chelsey, Heather & Lenny. I think the girls are Lacey Wyendots? (spelling?) They are beautiful little birds. Lenny is orange.

After only a week and some issues from moving next door ... they went "home" at nite and sat on the porch rail ... Today they seem to be settling in as a flock. Nae and I clipped some wings yesterday so they can't fly over the fences anymore.

I'm so pretty

Ken was in a feisty mood this morning when he saw the bright pink plumage of my slippers. So much so, I couldnt walk across the yard without challenge.

Three Egg Thursday - Hooray!

Checked the nest one last time with defeat in my heart only to find three beauties waiting to be plucked from the nest. The only difference is that I turned off the heat lamp 3 days ago. Coincidence? Hmmm. . .

Big Bad Bird

It snowed like crazy today. Brrrr. I went out to check on the kids a few minutes ago, and as I went down the steps off the deck to the yard I heard buc. . . buc. . . buc . . . I flashed my light under the stairs, but I didn't see anything. buc. . . buc. . .buc. . . buc. . .buc I crossed the snowy yard with my light shined at the ground, and undid the bungees holding the tarps over the coop. I ducked under the flap and heard buc. . .buc. . . I shined my light back across the yard and who should be crossing toward me? KEN! He walked right up to me and waited patiently for me to pick him up and put him in the coop! Then as he stood on the egg box, he did the "I'm gonna get you dance" I chuckled at the big bad bird and closed up the coop for the night.

A Little Light

from the back deck

looking in

We are suppose to get down to 29 degrees tonight. I added cardboard boxes (broken down) to the inside of the coop for added insulation. Then I strung an extension cord from the shed to the coop and dangled a light to add a little heat. I hope it doesn't mess with Ken's circadian clock.

Brrrr. . .

Looking thru to the front which is chicken wire

back door - egg access

Only 1/2 the floor is 3/4" plywood the other is chicken wire

doggie stairs perch

It's getting cold out at night. I think I need to insulate the coop a little. Chickens don't need a lot of heat as they put off their own body heat. According to my research anyway.

I think I will get a bale of straw for insulation and a piece of plywood to finish the other half of the floor. I will also need to cover the front and back walls with something that is less drafty. . . uhhh . . . they only have the chicken wire front and backs.

Hmmm . . .  how am I going to manage that? Any suggestions?

I've read that sectioning off a smaller area works. But the kids are'nt into change at all. They won't go near that little coop I put on their porch. I could make a back door in the smaller coop, move it to the entry way of the big coop (so they have to pass through it), but I'm afraid they will just move back to the porch with no protection at all. What to do? What to do?

middle board: perch

I put a board in so they would have a nice perch. They have never used it. When I was trying to dissuade Chic from laying eggs in the front corner, I put this set of doggie stairs in to take up space. They chose it as their perch. Go figure.

I don't know nothing bout raising no chickens!