Thursday, October 3, 2013

The Chicks

Unsurprisingly the 'Surprise chicks'  out grew their cage. Thanks to a little creative chicken shuffling we were able to put them in the brooder cage. We separated them; putting the ones we think are girls (very little comb growth) to the left and the probable roosters to the right. The photos are in that order too. We have five in the right side and six in the left, and are hoping that some (most) of them were mistakenly placed in the rooster side, while all the ones in the hen side are in the right one. (We can dream can't we?)

There is a cold front coming in soon and we will probably run a light out to them.

This is one of the few chicks that we've named; she is a pure blooded Ameraucana. She looks like a quail. Her name is Charlotte. She's probably going to look like 'Possum when she's grown.
    The mostly white chick to the right is Mira, short for miracle, she was the first one to hatch. She's a Buff Orpington- Ameraucana mix.


I call this one Barn Owl because of her markings.


I put an old rabbit waterer in the hen cage I wasn't sure chicks could learn to use one. Leopard, who has lost her spots, was nice enough to demonstrate that they can while I was taking pictures. 

It was nice to deal with chickens that weren't terrified of cameras.







 In honor of Halloween Bats Bizarre is having a sale! From today October 3rd until November 1st use coupon code HALLOWEEN for 15% off your entire purchase.

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Friday, September 27, 2013

Halloween Decorations

    We got excited and put up the Halloween decorations early this year. September 8, so just a little early. I put up the spider webs and Mom put up the lights. There are three webs in all. We were going to hang the yard decorations together, but I took too long with the Spider webs. (Which I consider works of art.)




Two pictures of the Haunted Hallway. One in the day light and the other at night. The eyes blink on and off. It took a couple of tries to get one with them all showing.


Here is the living room: 







Finally Outside. There are a few more ghosts, but I couldn't get a really good photo of them all together and I didn't want a photo overload.














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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The purple egg

   There was a surprise waiting for us this morning when we went to give the youngsters some kale. An egg was sitting in the back of Handful's cage. (still haven't put up the new chicken house. Sorry girls!)
   Handful has at the tender age of four months and eleven days old, laid her first egg. And it's purple! Very pale, but still purple! I guess we should have seen it coming, her mother is an Australorp (Ally or Lea I'm not sure which), both lay rose colored eggs and her father is Abe an Ameraucana, they lay blue eggs. But it's still cool!

Here it is in a carton with several others including an Ameraucana. 


There won't be a blog post on Thrusday. I'm having a VERY busy week. I'm sorry if this inconveniences anyone. I'll try to write one on Friday. But it might be Saturday.




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Thursday, September 19, 2013

The trouble with Roosters (Warning: it's awful)

    If you hatch your own birds or buy a straight run from a hatchery (a mix of males and females.) (Anyone else think it should mean a 'straight run' of either males or females? Anyway.) if you do either each chick has a 50-50 shot of  being a boy. If your luck is like mine it'll seems more like 70% when you buy a straight run, my theory being that more people buy all girls than all boys and the hatchery ends up with the exes of boys for the straight one shipments. Which is why I try to buy pullets (girls) when I buy chicks. There is still a chance of getting a boy when you buy all pullets, but I'd like to think it's lower than 50%.

     Unfortunately, we've been having a better than 50-50 shot at getting roosters when we hatch.  Three of Amy's chicks are most likely roosters, including that tricky Bared Rock. I won't stop hoping for hens until the caged birds crow, but I fear it's only a matter of time.

   The trouble with roosters is manifold. They don't lay eggs, they get into fights, bad tempered ones will attack you, and the worst one of all: they may kill your hens.
      We had a horrible time with Rhode Island Red roosters. When I was younger (9 or11) We put some young chickens in with the flock. Two were half Rhode Island Red roosters They "jumped" the hens, fond the weakest one and took turns jumping her until Mom grab one by the neck. The hen later died from her injuries. The rooster died immediately from his.
  Last year, we had two roosters that couldn't have been more than a quarter Rhode Island Red. We didn't know they had any Red in them until they got older and started looking exactly like one. When they were about two months old Mom and I went to feed the chickens and saw one of them on top of a buff hen. We put him in a separate cage and mistakenly thought the second one was a hen because it looked like the offending rooster had been jumping him as well. (his tail feathers had been ripped off.) While we were setting up separate cages I heard a commotion and saw that the second rooster was jumping the injured hen. The hen didn't survive. We later ate the roosters.

  So watch suspected roosters carefully. Rooster's often grow combs faster than the others and get taller faster. If you hear crowing remove them from your flock  immediately unless it's only one, its the one you plan on having as your rooster, and you have the hens in a large enough pen.  It seems worst with ones that mature early. (two month is early.) I've had roosters that were of different breeds and matured later and they were fine. But that might have been their temperament.

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