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.