Going to start off with an update on my Silkie boy, Frost. Or Frosty the Snow Chicken, as I call him.
Yesterday, his poor eyes kept closing up and I feared that he was going to lose one or both of them if the Vetricyn didn’t have the chance to work. Got up this morning and they were both stuck shut again.
Or still. It’s hard to tell.
I gave him 2 sprays in/on each eye. One to help open them and one to help heal.
I am please to report that he’s managed to keep them open all day. Is eating fine and is giving me an acceptable amount of rooster attitude.
Those are good signs. ❤️
Frost, in his cage on our porch. Giving me the accepted amount of attitude for a boy in a cage.
I’m betting he’s missing the coop and his flockmates right about now. Maybe not the bully rooster, but everyone else.
But then… He doesn’t know about this…
Snow… In mid/late April. Not unheard of over the years, but we haven’t seen it this late in a while.
The chickens were NOT impressed. In fact, they were kind of the opposite of impressed.
Five years ago this week, I was on the verge of becoming a new chicken Mom. I didn’t realize it at the time. Or I did. You see, we had ordered twenty-five Rhode Island Red chicks as a straight run from our local Tractor Supply. But chick-fever is a real thing and our baby RiRs would not be there until May. Every trip to Tractor Supply included hovering over the metal bins of peeping chicks and talking to them. Calling them ‘babies!’ and wishing I could bring some home.
Then, in the second week of April, after a day spent flying kites with our kids, somehow, we decided to just go to Tractor Supply and get chicks now.
We came back with twenty sex-linked chicks in a box. Seventeen little yellow roosters and three brown/yellow baby pullets. We didn’t know that at the time. My Dude, who is no longer little, picked them because they were cute. Who knew they’d be boys?
While they grew up quickly in our brooder box and I just as quickly researched chickens, breeds and other things, my wonderful DH built our coop out of raw materials my father had lying around the barn. Every year since, it has undergone minor changes. When the RiRs finally arrived, we kept them in the brooder until they fairly out grew it and then spent and agonizing week trying to integrate without a bloody massacre occurring.
And with Gold Boy and his rowdy crew, we certainly almost had a bloody massacre.
The following year we added 18 new pullets, and split the coop in two, and then removed the divide once they intergrated. I’ve since discovered easier ways of intergration… and letting hens raise babies inside the coop with the flock rather than buying chicks and risk fighting.
One year we added new perches and removed some unused nesting boxes.
And this year … After five years, we have given the coop new floors. It was time. They’re wooden and five years of water and deep bedding, the first winter with the ducks… the floors had been patched and patched again. It was just time.
This is what it looked like this morning when my Dude and I started cleaning it out.
Normally, I clean the deep bedding twice a year. In the Spring and in the Autumn. So we counted this as the Spring clean-out. My Dude and I took out eight wheelbarrow loads of bedding, which went on the garden beds. It will need tilled under and will set until next month when I’m ready to plant.
I also cleaned up a little around the run and chicken pasture, which the birds enjoyed because they got to find lots of yummy bugs and new sprouts. The ducks especially liked the burn pile. I’m not sure why, but I have long ago stopped trying to understand them.
My Dude did most of the work on the floors. He had help. DH cut the boards… and Georgina the Cochin supervised.
The rest of the chickens waited outside.
The others hung out outside, and the roosters (we have eight right now, until I decide which four are going to Freezer Camp) sounded the alarm at any unusual noises coming from the coop.
This is another new addition. We turned the Underneath into a place for broodies and babies.
The end result — new bedding, and broody!Winnie in the new broody house.
And there it is – a brand new floor made out of recycled pallet boards and happy chickens.
So this is my little Pavlovskya-mix hen, Pavelle. You’ll all seen pictures of her before, because she is a very unique little bird.
Back in March, Pavelle went broody, but I refused to let her have eggs then because it was still too cold and snowy for little wee things. She went broody again last month, and after a few days of watching her, we decided to let her have a couple of eggs.
Which hatched into the cutest little babies…
This one was the first one to hatch, a brown and yellowish chick that came from one of our olive egg layers.
The olive egg layers are all the children of last year’s Easter Eggers, Padme (the hen) and Luke (the ill-fated rooster. Yes, he did father three little hens and one rooster before we sent him to freezer camp). Best guess as to which hen supplied the egg? The size of the egg suggested Iggy (the EE cross Pavelle raised last year) or Cocoa and Nutmeg. Cocoa and Nutmeg I call my “Rhode Island Eggers” because they are the color of my RiRs and have EE cheeks. I suspect their bio-moms were RiR with Luke as the father.
It will be interesting to see how this little one feathers out, won’t it?
And this little precious came from a small brown eggs. I have a lot of smaller brown eggs right now, because all of the chicks from Little Dude’s Hatching Egg project are laying now. This one, as you can see, is all-black and tiny.
I have only one all-black hen, little Bella, the ‘Mad Scientist’ chick that My Pet Chicken slipped into our order.
Bella, the Mad Scientist. Which is just another word for some kind of cross. My Pet Chicken couldn’t even tell me what breeds went into making her.
Bella must be the bio/egg mom to the little wee black baby.
As to who sired them? I have three roosters, and haven’t been around much to see who has been hanging out with whom. I know what Philip (my little Leapy Boy) and Sylvester both have small followings and they are mostly the younger girls. But it’s hard to tell right now. Neither of them have feathered legs, which is possible with both of those two roosters.
We had new baby chicks hatched this week, from Monday – Wednesday, but I haven’t posted pictures yet. Why not? Because there was a mix up at My Pet Chicken in the labeling of the eggs and until this afternoon, we didn’t know what kind of chicks we actually had! And there are still two unaccounted-for chicks. The good people at My Pet Chicken have reached out to the breeder to discover what they might be… with help from pictures I provided of the chicks and their eggs.
Rocky, the only Barred Rock. We were supposed to have four of them!
They don’t know what I am either, so I’m grumpy 😡
The proud adopted momma with her chicks 🐥
I have that lovely maternity box we made for the broodies out of a repurposed cabinet. I put her in it. She and the chicks spent one night in there and then Rapunzel decided to move them outside, into a corner on the floor. After fighting with her for two days, I gave up and have decided that she’s going to raise them her way, whether I like it or not.
Pavelle also rejected the cat carrier, btw, and has her babies sleeping in one of the laying boxes at night.
This kind of ‘immersion rearing’ kind of baffles me because Abby, Claire and Ashley ALL wanted to hide their chicks away from everyone, so they welcomed the special areas I made for them.
These two broody mommas? Want nothing to do with it.
So instead… I put out a bigger feeder for the chick feeder, a second waterer and put some straw down so Rapunzel could make a nicer nest of her own design… and took this video of Pavelle’s little Feather Butt meeting his/her little ‘cousins’ for the first time.
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.
Yesterday, Pavelle’s wee little chicks celebrated their One Week-aversary. They are living happily in a cat carrier under the laying beds, with their food in the corner in front of them and a place to go for shelter. Pavelle being as small as she is, they have room to move around freely in there. She brings them out in the morning and afternoons, teaches them to dig and scratch in the deep litter bedding and is slowly introducing them to the other chickens.
Little ‘Feather Butt’ – aka the one with the feathers on his feet. This one is the biggest of the three chicks. He/she is friendly and inquisitive, not afraid of the bigger birds or me. And he/she stood up to Dots when he tried to tidbit with their chick feed. Ran right up to him and cheeped in Dot’s face. So he/she has inherited Pavelle’s bravery in the face of birds 50x his size.
Miini- Pav. 🙂 Mini-Pav is the smallest of the three chicks, and does not yet have as pronounced wing feathers as the other two have. He/she is also the shyest one, preferring to hang back where Feather Butt and Egger Baby will run forward.
The Egger Baby. The somewhere in-between middle chick. Not the biggest, not the smallest. Curious enough to stick her head out and look at stuff (me, the Bigs) but not brave enough to be the first one out there.
Feather Butt and Mini-Pav do not have the pronounced foreheads that their mother had as a chick. A reminder that they are cross-breeds and not pure anything. Pavelle likely has some Polish in with her Pavlovskaya … and Pip, of course, the Rhode Island Red and sexlink genetics. So maybe they won’t have crests and funny hair-dos like their momma. Or maybe they will? Who knows at this point?
I give you – the Babies!
The weather has been up and down, and Pavelle has yet to decide if she wants to take them outside. I’ve seen her bring them to the door and peek out, but has not attempted to lead them any further.
I’ll admit, I am both excited and fearing that day and a little glad that she has not. The last chicks I watched go outside for the first time .. vanished, and Abby kept the remaining babies hidden for the rest of the winter. So caution on Pavelle’s part is not without good reason.
ETA: Okay, I wrote that part up there *points up* and then went to the barn to let everyone and THIS happened, just to prove me wrong…
Feather Butt was the one balking. I finally stopped the video and went to put Mini-Pav and Egger Baby back inside because it became so obvious that Pavelle was not able to convince Feather Butt that it was, in fact, safe. But there you have it… it’s a good bet that she will get them outside sooner rather than later. To be fair, there is only so much she can teach them inside the coop. The big wide world awaits!
Today marks Day 14 for Little Dude’s 4-H hatching project.We’ll be candling again tonight and on Saturday. Sunday-Tuesday are Lockdown Days. The incubator has been an interesting experience in frustration and balance. Finding and KEEPING the right temperature and humidity both. I personally like giving the eggs to broody hens.
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!
If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that one of my hens – a spirited and friendly little girl named Maicey – was injured, presumably by a rooster spur. We have roosters, two of which have spurs, so this is a good likelihood.
Given that Maicey’s favorite rooster is our main rooster, Double Dots, I’m going to assume that it was him. Dots is a 2 year old golden comet rooster, also known as a gold sexlink. He does have long spurs, but thankfully not overly long.
Over the last couple of days, in between treating Maicey’s wound and shuttling my son to baseball games, I have been researching the best methods of trimming or removing rooster spurs.
The first is the Baked Potato Method, in which you basically shove the spur into a hot baked potato and keep it there for two-or-so minutes.
This method is demonstrated here:
Another good method is with a pair of pliers, twisting the spur off at the base:
You may also grind them down with a dremel tool, as demonstrated here:
None of these are the method I used. Not because they aren’t all good, but because I knew it was just going to be me and my Girl doing the trimming.
Instead of full removal (baked potato or pliers methods), we went with a simple trim, with dog nail clippers and a metal nail file, and followed the basic instructions, outlined here, by the Chicken Chick, to remove 1/4 – 1/3 of the nail.
After you have decided on a method that works for you and assembled the tools you will need, you need to consider your rooster. You know him the best, after all. The videos above are all done in the day time, but a lot of people recommend going to get your rooster at night, in the dark after he has gone to roost.
Why? Because he will be easier to catch and handle when he is sleeping.
In the case of Double Dots, this is not so much of a consideration. He is quite possibly the gentlest rooster ever. I can walk out into the pasture, scoop him up in my arms and carry him around like a toddler. Pip and the other boys are a bit different, so I’ll have to figure out what works best with them.
I started by plopping Dots in the sink and washing his feet and spurs. I also took the time to examine his feet for sores or anything else. You might as well, while you have access to clean chicken feet.
As you can see, Dots just stood there like he was king of the world. He’s not even bothered that he’s not with his hens, or that he’s in the kitchen, or just had his feet washed.
He’s not causing a fuss or anything.
Dots’ feet.
This one here – up front on the left – is the offending spur that hurt Maicey. It’s sharper than the other one, for some reason.
His spurs are not as big as some of the spur-removal videos out there, but the one is/was really sharp and pointy.
Guillotine style dog nail clippers
Nail file
I sat in a chair, wrapped Dots in a towel, and my Girl did the clipping. She did about 1/4 of each spur, and then used the file to blunt them so they weren’t as sharp.
See how calm he was?
Filing the spurs so they aren’t as sharp.
My Girl wanted to paint his toe nails, too, because he was just so chill about the whole thing.
Clipped and rounded down. 🙂
I do not anticipate the same experience with Pip. He lets me pick him, but only if he’s on the window ledge or a roost. I can’t just walk up and tuck him under an arm like I can his papa.
So again… please take your rooster’s individual behavior and personality into account when you prepare for this. You know him best.
You may also want to have a styptic powder or corn starch on on hand. If you cut too far on the spur, you can cause them to bleed, kind of like a dog’s nail will if you cut past the quick.
Spring is beginning to look like a reality here in northern Pennsylvana. The snow from our mid-March blowout is starting to melt, the grass is turning green, there were robins in the front yard… and the chickens had gone from 5-9 eggs a day (January/Feb) to 18-22 eggs a day. My average for the month is 17.something per day. I have few who stagger, so it’s highly possible every one is laying.
The next thing you know *cough*it’s already happened*cough* someone will go broody.
I have this vision in my head of the ultimate chicken coop. Sadly, I have a limited space to work with in the barn. My own allotted chicken space and that’s it. Unless I convince DH to build a second coop, we’re pretty much working with that same space. But I’m constantly trying work in changes and tweaks that might result in something closer to the ideal of my imagination.
We’ve been remodeling the house, and last spring, we did the kitchen, tearing out all the old cabinetry that has been there for close to 40 years.
This full sized until had an old dual oven in the empty spaces. Today, I gotto looking at it and realized that it would make a good ‘maternity suite.’ Kind of like last year’s ideas to put them under the laying beds, or the cat carrier idea (which worked, although it was cramped due to height constraints.)
But this? Could be ideal because could remove the doors, hang curtains for privacy and it was was wide inside to put both a decent sized nest AND a feeder/waterer.
After getting permission from Dad (whose cabinet it is) and asking DH to cut it down, this is what we came up with:
Because I open them up from the side to spy on the inhabitants.
See how the feeders sit in there on the left and the nest area is all ready for bedding.
I just need to add curtains… and a broody hen.
And… as luck seems to have it, I might actually have a broody hen.
This is Maicey. She is My Girl’s favorite hen out of all the others. Maicey has never gone broody before, but it sure looks like it. I’m going to give her a couple of days to see is she sticks with it and give her some of the barnyard mix. I’ve saved out one of Abby’s and Hershey’s (I was there when they laid them luckily) and hopefully some of Pavelle’s. I don’t buy specialty eggs (from breeders or hatchery) for new broodies. Too much of a chance they will be like Ashley, or mean to the babies.
If she stays broody, Maicey will be the first to try out the new broody accommodations.
I started by plopping Dots in the sink and washing his feet and spurs. I also took the time to examine his feet for sores or anything else. You might as well, while you have access to clean chicken feet.
There a Chick 