Of Ducks & Duck Eggs

In one of my last posts, I shared pictures of some of the newest members of my flock.  These included three Khaki Campbell ducks named Hewey, Dewey and Lewey (after Donald’s three nephews).   Hewey (the boy) and his two sisters came to me as eggs gifted to me by my friend Loretta.

They were hatched by my Light Brahma hen, Rachel, who never having been a mother before, had no idea that her babies were not normal chicks.

Rachel with her newborns. Hewey was the first one born, the biggest. He turned out to be a boy.

Rachel, and her babies, back in August after they were a couple of weeks old.  Raising ducklings has been an amusing adventure.  They are not like chicks.

For starters, my chicks all tend to stay under their mother exclusively for at a bare minimum of five days before venturing out into the wide world.  Some, occasionally, on day 1, while waiting for siblings to hatch, but not many.  It may be just my mother hens keeping them close, but not sure.  The ducklings?  As soon as they were dry and fluffy, they wanted to wander and explore, boldly running up to anyone they met and quacking a happy “Hey! Hi! Can we be friends?”

I got to witness this more than once because while Rachel was raising them, Pavelle was raising the bantams and cochins we got ( also from Loretta) and some orphaned chicks her daughter sat on but refused to raise.  (Turns out Heather is not a good momma).   There were sharing the floor, and it turns out that the ducks looked on Pavelle’s babies as new friends to explore the world with.  At least until they started getting bolder and bigger and the chicks did not grow with them.

Another big difference was the ducks… and water.  Ducks love water.  Rain, puddles, swimming pools, water tubs, you name it, ducks love it.

Chickens like to drink it, and to wade into after bugs, but not to swim in.  And my chickens do not like rain.

So imagine Rachel’s surprise when it rained the first time and her babies refused to run into the coop with her to stay dry, and in fact, ran around happy as clams… or ducks in water?  I went to check on her and found her grumpily trying to sit on them because her instinct was to keep them dry and theirs was to go out and play.

As we had a very wet summer, Rachel eventually gave up trying to keep them dry and just went with it.

The other big difference I noted was that when a mother hen raises chicks, she lets them to their own devices somewhere around the 6-week mark.  Sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but usually around then.

Ducklings – according to what I’ve read – stay with their moms a little longer, around 10-weeks, or between 1.5 to 2 months.

Rachel, being a chicken, soon found her children had outgrown her, and could not, by Week 4, sit on them.  Usually, she’d one or two under her and one sitting nestled close beside and they would take turns.  And by that time, she wanted to show her ‘chicks’ how to roost on the lower roosting bars. only, her chicks weren’t chicks, they were ducklings who couldn’t figure out how to fly onto the roost.

Eventually, she gave up trying and some nights, she would snuggle on the floor with them, and other nights, she would go to the roost.  There was no rhyme or reason, just whatever she felt like.  eventually, and much too early for ducks, she returned to doing Hen Things and left motherhood behind.

The ducks were on their own, although they continued to follow her around most of the summer and into autumn.

A few random pics of them growing up.

They have been a different sort of poultry experience.  They like water, like snow, and love to make messes with their waterer.  I’ve started leaving the water outside because the coop was getting very damp.

A couple weeks ago, one of the hens (yes, apparently female ducks can be called hens still) started laying eggs.  And then the other joined in.  They don’t lay every day, but almost every day.

Today, I brought up a full dozen duck eggs.

Duck eggs!

Aren’t they pretty?

They are white, and about the same size as my older girls’ chicken eggs. I assume that next year when they are older, they will be bigger. But they are still a good size.

Here are two of the duck eggs with a chicken egg in the middle.  The one on the left is one of the smaller duck eggs.  The one on the right is one of the bigger ones.

And below, for anyone interested, is a comparison of Duck versus Chicken eggs.   I found it via google, here.

I’m about to fry one up and eat it, and I’ll report back with any difference in taste.

 

One of These Eggs…

One of these eggs is not like the others

One of these eggs just doesn’t belong.

Can you tell us which egg is not like the others

By the time we finish this song?

So… thanks to Luke and Padme, I had four Easter Egger cross chicks hatched this past spring/summer. I was told they would told olive colored eggs and have been waiting to see it happen.

Looks like I got one!!!

Broody Hen versus Incubator

Rapunzel aka The Hen

The Incubator

Broody Hen versus Incubator… which is better?

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?  And if you’ve been following my blog for the last two years, you know that I love to give my broody hens eggs and take pictures of them with their babies.  

But this year, we did something different.  Little Dude wanted to hatch eggs for a 4-H Embryology project, so we ordered him some eggs from My Pet Chicken.  (I have ordered from them before, when Abby got her Easter Eggers.   I should do a blog post about both experiences sometime soon, for those who might want to check out their services. Or not.)  But for this project, he had to incubate them rather than our usual method of just giving the eggs to the broody hen.  

As luck would have it, however, we also had a hen go broody at the same time as we purchased the eggs.  Rapunzel, a one year old Buff Orpington hen.  She’s the bigger of my two Orps, and a little standoffish around me, but not mean or skittish.  

It was decided that we would give Rapunzel ½ the eggs and the Incubator ½, in an attempt to see which method yielded the better hatch.   And then, since supposedly, they were all hatching at the same time, we could give Rapunzel the ‘bator chicks, by sneaking them under her at night while she slept.  

I’m going to tell you… it’s been a LONG twenty-two days for us.  

Before I go into the details, let’s discuss the pros and cons of  both hens and incubators.  

Using A Hen to Hatch Your Eggs

Pros:  

• The hen does ALL the work for you.    For real.  The mother hen uses her body to control temperature and humidity, sense when it’s too hot, too cold, and plucking out feathers to regulate humidity by skin-to-shell contact.   She can also tell when an egg won’t hatch, so you don’t really need to candle unless you’re curious.  
• The hen then raises the chicks for you.   That’s a no-brainer.  Unless you get a hen who has no mothering instinct (it happens) or is violent to the chicks (it also happens), then your mother hen will raise the chick after hatches.  

• Chicks raised by hens have better natural chicken instincts, integrate better with your existing flock, and tend to be smarter and healthier.  

Cons:

• Risk to eggs.  With a hen, there is a risk of the egg getting broken, knocked out of a nest, stolen by a predator, or soiled (poop, etc) which could cause hatch problems.  

• Hen abandons the nest.  Just like that.  She goes broody one day, you give you eggs, she sits on them a while… and then she hops off and won’t come back.  It happens sometimes.  You should have an incubator as a back-up plan.

• Hen could kill the chicks.  This also happens sometimes.  A new mother or a mean hen could kill the babies after hatching.  Always have a brooder and heat lamp/heat source ready and waiting if your hen doesn’t accept her chicks.  

• Predators.  Self explanatory.  The eggs, chicks and hen are all vulnerable to the same predators.  Especially if they are together.  

Using an Incubator to Hatch Your Eggs

Pros:

• Freedom to hatch eggs whenever you want.  No need to wait for a hen to decide to go broody.  No sneaking fake eggs into the nest to trick one into it, either.

• Freedom to hatch as many eggs as you want. Or  rather, however many your incubator can hold.  

• Safety.  Egg is safe from predators and accidents which could cause breaking.  

• You can watch every step of the hatching process.  Because, let’s face it, that’s the cool part.  Watching them pip, and break their way out of the shell.  

• You can control the environmental factors.  Temperature and humidity are things that need to be maintained to have a good hatch.  Even the best broody hen could be off the nest too long or some cold weather could chill the air too much… or some very hot weather heat things up too much.  A lot could happen, but an incubator?  You control.

Cons:

• You control the environmental factors.  Yes, it’s a pro and a con.  Because we, as humans, can screw up.  Get the temp too high or the humidity too low?  Bad hatch in the making.  

• $$$$$  Incubators, especially good ones, cost money.  And if you don’t have an egg turner, you have to buy one yourself, which costs more – OR – turn the eggs twice a by hand.  Which means opening the incubator 2x a day until Lock Down and losing much needed  heat.  With a hen, she does the turning by instinct.  

• You need a brooder to raise the chicks in when you are done.  So after you raise your 300 chicks in your 300+ egg ‘bator, you need a brooder big enough to house them for 6 weeks, unless your intention is to sell them off as day-olds.  

• Unforeseeable Accidents Happen.  Like your incubator malfunctioning.  Or losing electricity due to a storm or equipment failure at the main power source.  Anything that lowers the temps in that incubator can kill your chicks.  

I tried to keep the pros and cons pretty much even here, and there may be some I missed.  Feel free to leave them in the comments.  I like healthy discussion.  

Now, let’s talk about Little Dude’s eggs… like I said, we ordered him eggs.  Ten of them, and then added two of our own to round off for twelve eggs.  We gave six to Rapunzel and gave six to the incubator.  

I spent three days prior to that testing the temperature of the incubator to make sure it was heating correctly and our thermometer was working accurately.  THEN I realized that we needed to gauge the humidity as well, so we purchased a digital thermometer that also did humidity.   

After the eggs were inside, I realized that keeping the humidity steady at the right temperature -(and different websites and different ‘experts’ say different things are to what humidity is right, btw.  I, however, was aiming for 45-50% humidity.  But that’s HARD to achieve when you don’t know what you’re doing, so there’s that) – was going to be the bane of my existence every day.   

Meanwhile, in the coop, other hens kept trying to lay their eggs in Rapunzel’s nest.  At least every other day, I found her with a couple new, non-fertile eggs.  

And then, the weather went from ‘high-70’s and 80’s with sun’ to mid-50’s and 60’s with rain’ and more rain and more rain.  And wind.  

The incubator eggs were pretty much unaffected, but because the rain was forcing my chicken-shit chickens into the coop all day, Rapunzel actually for forced off the nest several times between Day 14 and Day 18.  

On Day 17, however, disaster struck the Incubator in the form of a 6-hour long power outage.  I was smart not to open the incubator during that time, but the temp went from the required 99-degrees to 72 (room temp for that night).   I was on the verge and taking them out and putting them all under Rapunzel when the power came back on.  

I have been biting nails ever since.  Will they hatch, any of them?  ‘Punzel’s cold weather woes, the nest snatchers, and then an ill-timed power outage could have killed all of them.  

On Day 18, Little Dude and I candled them as per the 4-H project book’s instructions, and found 3 duds – two of Rapunzel’s and one from the ‘Bator.   We removed those, and waited for Lock Down to begin.  

Day 19… Rapunzel left her nest TWICE and I was worried that meant her ‘mother hen instincts’ were saying that the eggs were dead.   But then she rallied and hatched three of her four eggs on Day 20 and the last one yesterday on Day 21.  

The incubator wasn’t that efficient and those didn’t start pipping until late in the evening yesterday.  The first one officially hatched at 3 am on Day 22.   Two more, followed, and two…  well, at the time of writing this post had not done anything.  No pipping, no hatching.  (I’ll probably wind up tossing them out tonight.)

I’ll be honest, it was neat to watch them actually hatch – and yes, I checked every hour on the hour all night last night for pips and zips and babies.   BUT… I think I like my broody hens best.   There is nothing like knowing those eggs are in safe, confident hands.  Feathers, I mean.  

Rainy Tuesday Update

So, it’s raining today, with little patches of sunshine here and there.  The weekend was pretty much the same, but the week was pretty exciting around the barnyard and pasture.

First off… we’ve had visitors of the nasty variety.   Two fat brown woodchucks who think they own the place.   Dad shot one sneaking around the garden and caught the other in a trap he placed by their hole.

A couple of days later, we caught this opossum in the same trap.  Which means they are sharing the holes under the barn.

Dad wasn’t targeting the possum, because he read somewhere that they eat ticks. I don’t know if that’s true, but the DO eat eggs and young chicks, and can also kill adult chickens. I’m glad we are one possum less this week.

The neighbor’s white turkeys also paid a visit (which I didn’t get a picture of), but the chickens are getting used to them being around.

Ashley decided to go broody, and spent most of the weekend in Broody Jail.

Now, I know I have said in the past that I wasn’t going to use the Broody Breaker method anymore and just give my hens eggs.  But this hen is a special case.  This is Ashley – she who lost her babies 2 times in the fist week of their lives, kept leaving nest and getting too confused to go back to it, and then raised them to be neurotic weird freaks.  (example, Felix… and Perdie who STILL doesn’t trust me.)   So… no eggs for Ashley.

Besides which, Pavelle’s babies are two weeks old today and Rapunzel’s hatch/incubator babies are due to be hatching today.  Remember?  The 4-H project?   So yeah… I don’t need more babies just yet.  Especially not from a hen I don’t trust.

And while Ashley cooled out in Broody Jail, DH and Little Dude made another attempt to dry out the swampy areas in the middle of the chicken pasture.  Last year, DH made a pond.  This year, he’s spent days (and days and days) digging trenches trying to find where the underground springs run.

The chickens LOVE it because trenches mean mud, dirt, worms, bugs… stuff for them to do and see and EAT.  So they really love helping DH with his trench project.

DH digging the Trench

Two sexlink hens helping.

Abby loves to supervise the help efforts.

Tweety, also coming to help, because she heard there were worms!

You can by the mud on her face that she helped a LOT. Right?

And lastly what post would be complete without something about Pavelle and her babies?

This past week, Pavelle decided that she didn’t like the cat carrier as a nest, so she moved her babies out of it and up into one of the laying boxes.  They only sleep there at night, because the other thing they REALLY discovered this week was the great outdoors.  She takes them into the tunnels, the run and even into the barnyard.  They have not yet ventured into the greater chicken pasture, but still, the spend a good portion of the day outside, getting whatever yummies nature has to offer.   Whatever it is, they always have full crops when I see them, so it must be good.  🙂

This is Feather Butt, aka The One With The Feathered Feet. If you look closely…

… I *think* Feather Butt might also have a mini-crest. It’s not as pronounced as Pavelle’s was, but it sure looks like one to me, there on the top of his/her head.

 

Pavelle

Feather Butt (left) and Eggy (right)

Mini-Pavs

Happy 2nd Week-aVersary, little Pavelle-Babies!

Broody/Baby Watch – the One With the Feathered Toes

This will be the last “broody watch” post, as there are no more babies to be had. Pavelle’s wee little ones were getting restless so I went and candled the remaining two eggs. You could see something watery sloshing around inside each. Rotten yolks. Yuck! Rather than risk them breaking overnight, we chucked them and moved Pavelle and the babies to their new nest on the floor. Which, happily, Pavelle accepted. Hopefully, the overnight sleep will help her to feel at home there with the little ones. It has food, water and shelter. All the things a momma and her babies need.

And now to the title of this post – the One with the Feathered Toes.

One of Pavelle’s babies had feathered feet. For those of you who do not know, my little Pavelle is a Pavlovskaya hen, or partial Pavlovskaya.

The Pavlovskaya hen is Russia’s most ancient chicken breed. Its origins are lost in the murky depths of history, but by the time Russians began to take stock of their native chicken breeds in the late 1800s Pavlovskaya hens were already virtually extinct. Many centuries ago this breed emerged in the town of Pavlovo, a small enclave of peasants and craftsmen about 200 miles east of Moscow. The town was known for a number of unique agricultural specialties including the breeding of fighting geese, canaries, and the cultivation of lemons. Some poultry historians believe that the Pavlovkskaya hens are the foundational breed that gave rise to more recently developed crested breeds like the Polish, Barthuhners, and Brabanters.

~ Greenfire Farms – Pavlovskaya

Pavlovskaya’s have feathered feet and the very originals had five toes, it is said.  Somewhere in the recent attempts to bring them back from extinction, the fifth toe has vanished from some blood lines.

Pavelle came to me as an egg from a breeder who had a pair of what she was told were Pavlovs, but she believed them to be not-quite pure because they lacked the feathered feet.  Pavelle also has no feathers on her toesies.

So you can imagine my excitement when I saw this:

Little tufts of yellow feathers on the ankles of this wee little chick!

It means that, whatever else she is, my little Pavelle is definitely in some part Pavlovskaya, and so is this wee little babe who looks nothing like her momma in every other way.

You can even see some feathering on her legs, too.

Although, even close up, it looks like she’s just got wood chips stuck to her.

I’m cute little Pavlovskaya/RiR/Comet cross, aren’t I?

Totally adorable!!! I can’t wait to see how she grows into those feathered feet!

Broody/Baby Watch – Breakfast with Momma

Pavelle and her little mini-me.

And then momma called the others out to breakfast.

But mini-me has to stand in the food dish.

Hey, can we have some too?

Crowding in to get a taste of the yummies.

Awww!

I just honestly love this picture!

Too adorable!

Proof that Pavelle and the Mini-Me look alike.   On the left… Abby, with wee little Pavelle sitting in front.  On the right… Pavelle and Mini-Me.

Sweet!

Seriously, the wee thing looks JUST LIKE HER!

The two remaining Easter Eggs have not done anything. I tell myself that today is Day 21 and official Hatch Day, so they could still do something, but there aren’t even pips, and Pavelle has pushed them to the back of the nest. I’m thinking these three might be it, but I’m willing to give it another day just in case.

Broody/Baby Watch – Pavelle’s Lock Down

Yesterday was Day 19 for Pavelle and her sweet baby eggs and that means Lock Down.

For those of you who do not know about hatching eggs, a chicken egg takes twenty-one days to hatch. The last three days, Days 19-21, are what people who use incubators call ‘lock down days’ because under no circumstances are you supposed to open the incubator on those days, until the last chick has hatched.  This is because in those last three days, the babies do the most growing in preparation to come out of their shells.

When I let my hens sit on eggs, I make sure not to mess with them during those days, so they can do their own thing.

Yesterday, I went to check for eggs and discovered that Pavelle had a brown egg sticking out from under her.  She frequently steals other hens eggs from neighboring nests.  She had TWO brown eggs, actually… but was also missing one of her her six eggs.   I didn’t see signs of eaten shell, but one of the brown eggs I had retrieved from under her had yolk on it, so I assumed the worst.

I know what happened to it now, and I’ll get to that in a minute.  But first…

I found this little Easter Egger chick this morning, on Day 20.  It is a bright yellow with brown/black on the top of it’s head, with puffy little EE cheeks.

I found this

I know I am a cutie 🙂

Pavelle actually had a total of three chicks under her this morning when I left the coop – two of her Pavlov-mix babies and one Easter Egger. There are two EE remaining. Given this is Day 20, and hatch day is technically tomorrow, I won’t worry too much about the other eggs until Wednesday or Thursday.

I set her up with some food and water, in the nest with her to discourage other hens from trying to sit with her in the nest (because that is another reason she keeps getting other hen eggs. They are trying to ‘share’ the nest with her.)

Hopefully, at least one of the other eggs will hatch. The one is EE#2 and we all know I have been iffy about the contents of that one.

This morning when I removed the broken eggs shells from under her, I discovered the missing Pavelle-egg. It apparently tried to hatch YESTERDAY on Day 19, and died. I found it half-buried in the bedding under Pavelle and the live chicks. 😦

I’m used to having them hatch on Day 20 or 21. Day 19 might be a little too early?

I will report back tomorrow with (hopefully) the last chicks and pics of all of them.  Pavelle is a bite-y momma, so it’s hard to get pics of them right now.

 

Your Eggs Have Shipped

The hatching eggs for Little Dude’s 4-H hatching eggs have shipped.  According to the tracking information, they will be here sometime Tuesday, via USPS.  So… probably between 1 -2 p.m.

I have set up the incubator and am testing it now. It needs to be at 99.5 degrees fFahrenheit and I’m not sure about the humidity.  We don’t have a humidity tester, so I couldn’t tell anyway.  I’ve read that if you’re using shipped eggs, you should let them sit 12-24 hours before putting them in the incubator.   So this means I have a couple days to successfully test the incubator we borrowed, and if I don’t like how it runs, head out to Tractor Supply to get a new one.

 

 

Broody Watch – Candling Pavel’s Eggs

Today marked the end of the first week for Pavelle and her eggs.   With the exception of Abby’s first-time hatch, I have been candling once a week leading up to Lock Down, to give me a better idea of how many chicks to anticipate.   Nothing was more disappointing than finding out Ava’s egg was infertile and that Pip was destined to be a singleton chick. (Of course, he has made up for it by being a good big brother to Abby’s subsequent hatches, so there is that.)

In preparation for Little Dude’s 4-H eggs, I have made a first time attempt at photographing the eggs as we candled them.

Pavelle 1

Padme/EE 1

Padme /EE 2

Pavelle 3

Padme/EE 3

Pavelle 2

It’s only a week out and it’s kind of difficult at this point to accurately predict.  Also, the darker the egg shell, the harder it is to really tell what’s going on in there.

Luckily for Pavelle, her eggs are white-shelled and came out fairly clear.  You can see signs of development in all three eggs, which is promising.

Padme’s Easter Egger greens, however, are difficult.  I had a hard time with them when we gave some to Abby, too.   #1 and #3 are dark, with an outline.  This is how Abby’s EE eggs were, the ones that hatched.  I didn’t see much in the way of veins or anything with those very dark ones, but I got babies out of them.  I’m going to say, for now, that they have babies.  #2 — appears to be clear and empty.  I don’t see anything at all going on in there.  I’m going to wait until next Tuesday to level a final verdict on it.

But for now, I’m predicting five chicks.

Broody Girls

It’s spring, and after a long and snowy winter, in which the hens spent more time in the coop than outdoors.  The weather is warming up, the grass is growing.  Flowers, weeds and bugs are everywhere.  Life is good if you’re a chicken.

A couple of weeks ago, several of my hens started exhibiting signs of being broody.   Hanging out in the nests longer, or later in the day.  Puffed up feathers and growling or yelling while they are in the nest.  Growling and yelling at other hens when they are off the nest.

This kind of thing happens every spring.  Hens thinking that maybe they want to go brood on some eggs and raise some babies.  Its a natural, hormonal instinct for chickens, albeit one that the hatcheries have tried to breed out of their birds because egg/meat production is more profitable than hens sitting on eggs.   But if you’re a back yard chicken owner, homesteader, or farmer who wants a self-sustaining flock, a broody hen might be what you’re looking for.

My first year as a chicken owner, I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know if I wanted broody hens.  Most the websites and blogs who talk about broodies talk about how to broody break them, because most people want eggs.   And I had Abby, who went broody less than two months after laying her first egg.   I broke her the first time, but decided when she did it again a month later, that it wasn’t worth trying to break her again, and just gave her eggs.

Watching Abby raise her chick – the rooster now known on this blog as Pip – was all it took.  I was bitten hard by the bug, and now wait with anticipation for the sign of broodies I can give eggs to.  There is something of wonder about watching a mother hen raise her Littles, seeing them explore the world at her side.  Learn and grow, and become a part of the flock.

I also like seeing the way genetics plays out in the 2nd Gen chicks.  I have a small group of ‘barnyard mix’ hens and two mix roosters who are all very unique in their looks and personalities.

So… anyway… I had five hens who started to act like they might go broody.  Penelope, Claire, Julia, Rapunzel and Pavelle.

Penelope an Julia really didn’t do anything.  They did that last year, too.  Walked around bucky for a week or so and then just stopped.   I don’t expect this year to be different.

Claire is STILL puffing up while she’s on a nest and sometimes while she is off it.  Given that she actually DID go broody last spring, I’m watching her closely.  She might.  And she was a good momma, so I would have no qualms about giving her eggs.

Rapunzel went HARD. Rapunzel is a Buff Orpington and Orpingtons are known to be goody broodies.  Rapunzel spent the least time ‘going through the motions’ and after a couple of “well, maybe” days, she hopped in a nest and committed to sitting on ceramic eggs.   She is very dedicated to them, and I’m going to let her stick with the ceramic eggs because I have special plan for her.  Little Dude is going to be doing an Embryology project for 4-H, which means we will be hatching eggs in an incubator and documenting every step of the way.   I have eggs coming from My Pet Chicken, because Little Dude wanted Barred Rocks.  So we have 4 Barred Rock eggs and 6 “assorted” eggs, which could be any breeds, coming later this week.  I’ve decided that I will be giving Rapunzel the chicks that hatch from those eggs.  Hopefully, she will accept them as her own.  Otherwise, I will have to put them in the brooder and raise them separate of the rest of the flock.

In the meantime, Pavelle is sitting on six eggs.  Three are hers, and three came from Padme, the little Easter Egger hen.  They are the smallest eggs I have, even though Pavelle is very impressive when she is puffed up and screaming at you, she is still a small hen.  Any of the babies she raised will be bigger than her at 6 weeks of age.

If anyone else goes broody in the between time – I’m looking at you, Claire – I will probably share the wealth, rather than give more eggs.  Claire, for example, could take on some of the 4-H babies, so Rapunzel, who is a new mother, doesn’t have to raise a potential ten babies on her own.  But that is a big IF that has a lot of variables.  IF Claire or anyone else goes broody in the next 3-4 weeks.  IF the incubation is successful and all the eggs hatch.  I’ve never used an incubator before and I’m borrowing one from DH’s aunt for the project.  So many variables.

Pavelle looks kind of pineapple-like in the back when she is puffed up.

Rapunzel in the first stages, before she committed.

Pavelle and ‘Punzel both dirt bathing and growling at each other.

… and then she decided to growl at me.

On the roost, trying to look intimidating.

Rapunzel, finally committing.

Pavelle also committing.

Neither of them wanted to ‘maternity box’ I made last month. They keep going back to these corner nests – the biggest laying nests we have. They sit there all day and growl at every hen who walks past trying to find a place to lay eggs.

In the last picture, you can see that Pavelle and ‘Punzel are in a prime location. Pavelle will steal eggs from the nests around her, and I constantly have to check underneath her for extras. Which is funny because one time, she had three extras and they were sticking out because she is so small they don’t all fit!

 

Pavelle

Rapunzel