Tough Chicken Times

When you first get chickens, life is all cute fuzzy chicks making equally cute peeping noises and yeah, there are some messes to clean up, but overall, it’s still cuteness overload.   And then get bigger… and the messes get bigger… and then they get older… and the cuteness wears off… well, unless you’re our Maicey girl, who is pretty sure she’s cute 24-7, even five years out.  She tells me so every day.   She’s that confident.

If you have chickens, I’m pretty sure you have a girl like Maicey, too.  So you understand.  There’s always that one who knows.

But this isn’t really a post about how cute Maicey thinks she is.

This is actually a follow-up to Frost’s injuries, the report of another injury, and some sadness.  It’s been a tough chicken week here in our coop.

Last post, I think I mentioned that DH was building Frost a tiny bachelor pad, big enough for 2-3 birds, to spend some time in while we waited for the weekend to come and bullies to be gone.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Here is the enclosed coop. They had some issues the first night. One of them refused to go inside to sleep, and as it was supposed to be cold overnight, I worried I would return in the morning to a chicken-sickle.

I am pleased to report that I did not. In fact, over the course of the last few days, they seem to fairly happy, if a little bored at times. It is a much smaller area than they are used to.

The hens I chose to go with him were three who have been over-mated by our younger, more exuberant roosters. The Winter Boys of whom the Bully Barry was one. My thought was that, they could stay there, getting some much needed rest from over mating, until the hen-to-rooster ratio was adjusted.

Today, this morning in fact, they were liberated. (More on that later.)

In the meantime, while I was fussing with Frost and wrestling with the weight of who should be the four roosters to leave the flock… two over bits of heartache occurred.

You may remember from the post about the new coop floors, I mentioned that my Columbian Wyandotte named Winnie, was broody. We had given her seven eggs. These eggs were ‘special’ because they are HUGE, like so big they don’t fit in a a jumbo egg carton and look rather cartoonish compared to the other normal-sized eggs. I wanted to see what came out of them, to try and decide who was laying those eggs.

Saturday should have been hatch-day. I say should have been, because it came and went and nothing hatched. I let it go until Wednesday, just in case. Still, no babies. We had candled them at the end of the first week, and there had been life. But still, no babies.

Wednesday, I removed them from under her, and returned her to the coop. I found that only one of the eggs had pipped and tried to hatch, but failed and became shrink-wrapped. The dead chick was fluffed out, a grayish color. I have one blue/gray cochin and four blue/gray Rocks… so the coloring kind of narrows it down. However, a couple days ago, I removed one of HUGE eggs from Frost’s outdoor coop. He had two of the Blue/Gray Rocks and a mixed hen with him. So that narrows things down. I’m thinking of the Rocks at this point.

Of the other six eggs, two were duds, and the others had dead chicks at various stages of development.

Winnie spent very little time off the nest, so I don’t know why they did not hatch. We did have a bit of a cold snap in between Week 2 and Week 3. A belated return of ‘winter’ and cold enough to freeze water in their dishes. But I had not considered that the eggs wouldn’t be safe under her. They seemed warm enough when I removed them.

I just don’t know.

For now, no one is in the broody place, but my little cochin has decided she thinks she is broody again. I am torn between trying eggs again or just getting her chicks from Tractor Supply. If I give her eggs, it has to be today, because today, or rather this morning, we still had all eight roosters to fertilize the heck out of them. (More on that later. Yes, I keep saying that.)

I also have an Australorp who is being broody, too.

I should put one of them into the broody breaker, aka the dog crate. But as it happens, the dog crate is currently being used in it’s other role… than of med-crate.

This would be why my dog crate cannot be used as a broody breaker.

Thursday morning, I went down to feed the chickens, clean the coop, you know, my usual routine. I had a bowl of apples and pears which had gone soft and mushy, and no one in the house was going to eat. I like to roll them out into the pasture so the chickens can chase after them. It’s fun to watch.

One of the apples rolled far enough that they lost interest, so I walked down to get it and roll it again, in a different direction. As I was walking back towards the barn, I looked out towards the side of the barn, and noticed a hen out there in the weeds. They’re not supposed to be over there, but occasionally one will fly over.

So seeing one out there made me take a second look and I realized that she was laying on the ground. Not walking around.

My heart sank, because there is a leg trap there in those brambles. It’s not my choice. Dad put it there because we’re having a problem with several types of pests who like our gardens and also like our chickens. They are the teeth-less traps, but can still do damage.

I open the gate and walk over and see, much to my horror, that yes, her leg is caught in the trap. And much to my… relief… that she is still alive. She had to have spent the ight out there, and being a gray chicken (one of the Blue/gray Rocks), I would have missed her at lock up in the shadows.

So I rushed back to the house to get Dad, because I really don’t know the first thing about opening those traps, and also woke up my Dude. They came down and we got her freed. She could barely walk, and as you can see from the above picture, her foot is swollen.

But the leg is NOT broken, which I feared because of how brittle bird bones can be.

I got her cleaned up and sprayed the wound with Vetericyn and then Scarlex oil. I also bought a pack of Save-a-Chick probiotics to add to her water. I am hoping that helps boost her immune system while she heals.

We’ve been checking on her, spraying her foot/ankle with both sprays and letting her walk around in the barn (a no-no during normal times ,but she’s forgiven for now) for the last three days. She is walking better, but the foot is still swollen. It’s not hot, so I don’t think infected, but I don’t know what to make of the fact that it’s still swollen.

However, she is putting pressure on it okay, walking mostly normally and doing little hops over things like a normal bird. We’re resolved to keep her separated over the weekend. I’d like to see that swelling go down, but if she is getting along okay, I’m not sure what else to do.

And lastly… the ‘more on that later’…

We sent four of our eight roosters to Freezer Camp today.

Barry the Bully was always going to go, but I had wrestled with the others.

We had, of course, Double Dots, Philip (aka Leapy), Rocky, John, Frost, and the last two Pavelle babies, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

Other than Tweedle Dum… all of these roosters are ones I like. And some of them we’ve had for a very long time. But four needed to go, so we had some hard decisions to make. It’s not always as easy as getting rid of the mean ones, because sometimes, there’s only just one mean one. And I frequently have too many roosters.

In the end, we kept Double Dots, Rocky, John and Frost.

Which, by default, makes Dots head rooster again until of the other three realizes they might be tougher than him. No clue who it’s going to be, except it won’t be Frost. He’s too timid.

So it’s a quieter, calmer place in the coop this morning. When I finally do return the little injured Gray Girl (whom we’ve officially named Peggy), there won’t be as many boys trying to mate her.

I hate posts like this. I hate hate having bad chicken days, or bad chicken weeks. But when you have chickens, either as pets or livestock, or like mine a mixture of both, tough days/weeks happen. It comes with having animals.

Here is hoping for a better week coming up.

Frost and Snow

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.

Also, watching them navigate the ramp was funny.

Chicken Anniversary, Bullies and Chicks

• 

• 

• 

Our Double Dots, turned 5 years old on April 11th.

On April 11, 2015, I became a first time chicken momma to seventeen little yellow rooster chicks, and their three little brown&yellow sisters. It’s been five years since then, and a lot has happened. I’ve seen chickens come and go, added a lot of different breeds, and watched mother hens hatch out lots of babies.

We still have one of the original flock, our beloved Double Dots, who celebrated his first birthday without his sister this year. She would have enjoyed the day. It was warm, with sunshine and new green grass. Dots enjoyed but for her.

He is starting to show his age. His crow sounds like that of a little old man. The feathers around his face seem more white (gray hair, chicken style?) than they used to be. But he still walks around the coop/run/pasture with an air of purpose band and determination.

On May 5th, the handful of Rhode Island Reds we have left from our second round flock will also turn five.

Happy birthday (belated and early) to all my birds!

It’s been a stressful week.

I’ve suspected for a while that someone (or more than one some one) has been picking on my Silkie rooster, Frost.

Frost. If you can’t tell, it looks like someone has been pulling his feathers.

Frost is a timid little guy, smaller than my other roosters and a bit of a loner. Lately, he’s been hanging out a lot by himself. I’ve wondered at it, but with my new, full time job, I haven’t had a lot of time to sit and observe what’s going on. However, with Covid-19 shutting down basically every thing, I find myself on an every other day work schedule and time to watch them.

I still couldn’t pinpoint who was picking on him, but you know how it goes… Sometimes when one does to, more if them will, too.

Frost started hiding in the duck house and I’d have to put him in at night.

And then last night, I found him there, huddled in the corner and caked with mud … and blood. Looked like he’d been mud wrestling with a bear, and lost.

I brought him inside, tucked him away in a nest and began doing a head count. At the same time, slowly looking at all the possible culprits.

Our youngest rooster, Barry, a little one my RiR Maicey hatched and raised at the end of them summer… also looked like he’d been mud wrestling, but won. I am pretty sure he did it.

The pictures I am about to show are NOT pretty. And they are very heart-breaking.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I had to bathe him, which is hard because he has very brittle feathers where he’s been trying to grow them back.

So it was more like him standing in the kitchen sink while I sprayed warm water over him to get out the mud and blood.

His eyes are swollen and I’ve been treating them with Vetricyn spray. You can tell it stings him when I spray it, but it’s necessary.

He is currently residing in a dog crate on our porch. Until his eyes are a little better, I can’t risk returning him to the flock.

The bully Barry’s days are numbered. It’s time we decided who of the 8 rooster we were sending to Freezer Camp anyway, but it’s been decided that it will happen sooner rather than later. There will be four of them leaving.

Possibly five if Frost doesn’t get better. I’m worried about those eyes, but I have faith in my Vetricyn.

And DH is building a smaller, enclosed coop, that I can possibly put Frost and some of the hens who’ve been over mated by over-enthusiastic younger rooster and need time to regrow feathers. He’s doing this emergency build right now, in the snow.

I love my DH. He is awesome on so many levels.

On a happier and more exciting note, tomorrow is Day 21 for my broody Columbian Wyandotte, Winnie and her seven little eggs. I am nervously awaiting the first signs of new peeps. I will talk more about that as it happens.

An Update on Dots

Well, here’s a brief update on Double Dots.

His eye is, as you can see, doing much better. We are still treating his eye 3x daily with the Vetericyn spray and ointment. It’s helping. He can hold his eye open so much better. It also does not appear that the eyeball itself is damaged.

That all is the good news.

The bad news is that Dots appears to have PTSD now.

I’ve been giving him supervised visits with the coop and flock. I put in there with them and stay close. Watching.

Philip (aka Leapy) has chased him twice. Gone after him once. He’s run from him both times.

Sylvester, my usually friendly Brahma boy, went after him today in the coop and pulled a feather out.

And when Henrietta, who is usually Dots’ friend, came up to him to say “hi” he literally jumped on top of my shoulder to get away from her.

While sitting on the roost with me observing him, Lola (a sexlink hen) came up to sit next to him. He awkward and quiet.

He did not at all act like himself.

I’ve been visiting Google a lot. Looking up other sites to find out what can be done. I can accept that Philip (and perhaps Sylvester too) have wrestled control of the coop away from Dots. But I wish with all my heart that he can return to the flock when his eye heals without more clashes.

Google says that in most cases, the surrendered rooster will be okay so long as the new Main Rooster does not continue to harass him.

A little integration may help. I’m thinking that if his eye is looking any better by Friday, I may move the med came into the coop to ‘reintroduce’ him to the flock. If the boys can’t go back to something that looks like normal, we maybe have to go to Plan B.

However, after today, I worry about how timid he was with Lola and how afraid of Henrietta he was. It’s definitely PTSD.

And that concerns me, because if he cannot even talk to the girls, how can he live with them?

Also, Plan B… an unprecidented winter Freezer Camp. My DH hates culling in winter. We usually do fall or spring. There’s va good four months to go before we’d consider it again.

So if the Boys don’t find a new normal that includes Dots, we need Plan B.

But who do we send to Freezer Camp?

I like Sylvester. He is a big boy, but has a temperament not unlike Dots. He’s friendly and I can pick him up.

Philip is Pip’s only child. I like him too.

Dots is … Dots. But if he can’t reacclimate to hos ladies, should he be the one to go?

I hate making these decisions. They make my heart hurt.

The Most Heartbreaking Thing

I went down to our coop this morning to do usually morning thing. Feed the chickens, let them out, make sure the dropping boards are clean and the nests are free of poop.

I was surprised however, to see our main rooster, Double Dots, already outside, alone and walking funny. Hunched up. Covered in blood.

At first I think that maybe we forgot to close the coop last night and am suddenly terrified that bloody rooster = dead chickens.

But no, the coop is closed

Dots got locked out. All night, on a night where it was less than 19-degrees (farenheit), with a wicked wind blowing from the north.

There are so many things going on in my head.

1. Was Dots attacked in the night by predator?

2. Why was he outside?

You see? Dot is usually the first rooster in the coop, and he usually dictates who goes inside first.

However, we have a handful of young Roo-lings who were too young in September /October to send to Freezer Camp… and Dots is almost 4 years old. Could it be that he was outside when everyone was inside because there is a dominance war going on? Could someone else be stepping up to wrestle the role of Main Rooster from our Dots?

Dots was injured, his eye and comb pretty beat up. I have him in the dog crate that doubles as a hospital ward / broody breaker. I checked him over, there are no body injuries, just his eye and comb. Cleaned him up with warm water and sprayed his comb Scarlex oil and his eye with Vetericyn spray.

Called Tractor Supply to see if they had eye gel, and learned that green tea works for eye injuries too.

He will need to be separated from his flock until I can be sure his eye will get better. He will need care and patience and a lot of prayers.

I’m trying to practical. If his eye does not get better, he’s not much use to his flock. But this is our Double Dots we’re talking about. If I have to cull, I will be heart broken beyond words.

And .. that leads me to the other thought on my heart

3. Double Dots is one tough roosters. He survived all night, injured and alone. He deserves to pull through this.

Pictures below are heartbreaking.

Troubling Times

Double Dots, my three year old Golden Comet rooster

A couple of weeks ago, a troubling thing happened.

I was standing in the barnyard observing my flock, as I am prone to do. Pavelle had her babies outside and I wanted to get pictures. Also, as I am prone to do.

The chickens were milling around about me, as they are prone to do.

I was holding my phone, paying more attention to Pavelle and her babies than anything else, when sudden my I heard flapping of wings and felt bird feet on the back of my head. A couple of seconds later, my head rooster, Dots, goes flying over top my head and lands on the ground next to me.

He flew at my head.

It was puzzling, to say the least. Was he attacking me? Trying to perch on my shoulder or head?

Needless to say I’ve been a little (a lot) more mindful of where he is in the barnyard when I am down there now.

And then… Yesterday it happened again. I was in the barnyard with my daughter, watching the chickens. She was holding her favorite hen. Dots was behind us on the barn stairs and suddenly starts flapping his wings and launches himself at me. He did not connect this time or get as high off the ground. But my Girl witnessed it and needless to say, we were both shocked.

This is a rooster I have raised from a baby. He usuallyets me pick him up, cuddle him, let him. He comes to the sound of his name. If I sit on the steps, he has been known to come and sit on my lap.

So, I ask myself, “what is going on with my handsome man?” Have I done something? Is he jealous of my attention paid to the younger roosters? Is he confused because I have lost 96 lbs and no longer look like the Mom who raised him?

Or is this a change in hormones or temperament?

He’s three years old, though and in that time, he has never been a bad rooster. He still is letting me pick him up and carrying him. Still likes pets, neck rubs and water massages.

I just don’t know what to make of this. I hope I don’t have to make a hard decision.

Sylvester

 And because I can’t get WordPress and Google to like each other right now, here’s a video of him saying “Hello! Look at me!”

The Autumn Chicken Report

Or is it the Late Autumn Chicken Report?  Because winter is almost here people.   As reported in my last post, the chickens are in various stages of molt.  They look pathetic, although some of the earlier molters are almost feathered back.

Hopefully, the others will hurry up and NOT still be half naked by the time the snow starts sticking.

October (or rather the end of October) meant the return of Halloween, jack o’lanterns and pumpkin seeds.  I’ve always been jealous of pictures and videos of peoples’chickens pecking holes in pumpkins left out for them.  Mine do not do that. They ignore whole pumpkins like the plague and even broken up ones, they would just eat the seeds and not the pulp.

Pumpkin guts make a good chicken treat.

What’s this? Dunno, but it smells good. (aka Phillip and Heather discovering pumpkin for the first time.)

This year, however, they were more than interested in our post-Halloween offerings and devoured not only the pumpkin seeds and guts shown above, but six medium sized jack o’lanterns over the course of the first week of November.

I am glad they enjoyed it,  because in the next couple of weeks, I was tasked with the painful process of deciding which of them Summer Boys stayed and which ones were sent off to Freezer Camp.  If you’ve read my blog before, you know that I have a general weakness for roosters.   Between their beautiful plumage and strong, unique personalities, how could I not fall in love with the little buggers?  But every year, we hatch an average of 5-8 roosters and I’m only allowed to keep a minimum of three, depending on the size of my hen-to-rooster ratio.

This year, including Dots and Luke (saved from last year), we had a grand total of eights roosters.  DH said I could keep three this year, if one of them was Phillip, the smaller rooster hatched out of one of Pavelle’s little white eggs.   He is about half of Dot’s size and not likely to get much bigger.

So while the chickens were blissfully enjoying the pumpkin treats, I was looking at my roosters, talking to them, interacting with them, and trying to decide who should stay and help Dots keep his flock safe.

This is NEVER an easy decision for me, and the last time I had to do it, a mistake was made.   

I will probably never forgive myself for allowing DH to take Pip that day instead of Luke.  I miss him.  Everyday, I miss that little guy.   He was our first chick ever and worked well his father and mother in taking care of the flock.

Phillip (or Leapy as I call him sometimes), is Pip’s son from Pavelle and reminds me a lot of him, personality wise.

So, before I go into who got tickets to Freezer Camp, let me introduce to the Summer Babies.

Grumpy Gus

Cutie

Rachel

Heather

Bella (with Sylvester in the background)

The chicks of Baby Land (from left to right, starting in the front, Not Cocoa, Darcy, Apache (rooster) and Cocoa)

Iggy

Roxie

Winnie

Sylvester

Chipmunk (with Bella and Sylvester)

Phillip (aka Filipe, aka Leapy)

A.J. (with his mother, Pavelle)

Darcy

Cocoa

Not Cocoa

Of these, the roosters were Philip, Gus, Cutie, Sylvester, Apache and A.J.

I have also thought at times that Darcy could really be a Mr. Darcy, but that one is either a late bloomer or a big hen.   So we aired on the side of ‘big hen’ and kept Darcy, for now.  She will winter over that will us time to see if she is really a he.  Or not.

This year, I decided to rectify the mistake of keeping Luke,making him first on the list for Freezer Camp.

We would be keeping Dots (as usual because it’s dumb to get rid of a good rooster, and I learned that the hard way with Pip) and Philip… so I had a spot for one more keeper.

The candidates I was deciding from were Cutie ( a light barred rock from Little Dude’s incubator project) and Sylvester, the only hatched buff brahma.  Of the Summer Boys those two were my favorites.   Cutie because he was so incredibly beautiful and Sylvester because he was raised by my Tweety girl and has always been friendly.

Like last time, I simply couldn’t decide right up til the end.  What it came down to was which one could I pick up without too much hassle.  Cutie always fights me until I got him in my arms.  But then he would settle in.   But he would still fight me.  So on Freezer Camp day, I made the decision in favor of keeping Sylvaster and letting Cutie go.

I hope that it doesn’t turn out like the Luke vs Pip decision.   I really don’t.   I couldn’t take that again.

Incidentally, it really wasn’t “freezer camp” this year.  We decided to can them instead and got 9 jars, 8 pints and 1 quart of meat out of them.   They will be used to make soups and stews and maybe to grind up for chicken salad.   

 

The last thing we needed to do was give little Not Cocoa a better name.   She is part Easter Egger (because Luke is her papa) and part Rhode Island Red.   We called her Not Cocoa because we named Cocoa first and she is… not Cocoa.

How hard is it to come up with a good name for me?  I’m adorable!

 

So we’ve been debating it a while, and finally, on Thanksgiving, we came up with a suitable name… Nutmeg.

Lastly, I’ll leave you all with a picture of Double Dots and his ladies enjoying their Thanksgiving morning breakfast of oatmeal mixed with scratch grain, BOSS, meal worms and cranberries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rooster Mani Pedis

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.

 

My Boys

Okay, so… last week, my hens decided it would be fun to do their dirt bathing in the ashes left over from the burn pile.   They came out of it covered in soot.  All the white hens were gray, all the  Sexlinks and RiRs were various shades “muddy” or “moldy.”  (I don’t know how to describe it.  They look bad.)  And even though it has rained the last few days, they still look filthy.  If I didn’t have so many of them, I’d be tempted to give baths.

But since the girls are unfit for pictures, we will have to make due with pictures of my boys.

Currently, there are four of them.

My handsome Double Dots, as you all know. He’s a golden sexlink, also called a Golden Comet.   I’ve talked about him before.  A lot.  Dots is the father of Pip….

… who was our first-hatch chick, and the oldest of the “2nd generation” flock.

They have an odd sort of relationship.   Pip has a lot of respect for his papa, which is probably good because he grew up alone, with no same-aged hatch mates to back him up when he stepped out of line. Dots and the Aunties (the others hens) put him in his place a lot from the age of 9-weeks to 1 year.

Now the Aunties kind of like and he and Dots work together to protect the flock.  They don’t fight, that I’ve seen anyway.  Dots does chase Pip, if he catches him mating or whatever, but it’s usually only a few feet and then he stops.   They tolerate each other on the roosts at night.

And they BOTH take Felix to task.

Felix (who used to be Felicia, but clearly is NOT a hen) is gen 3 for this rooster dynasty, as I believe he is Pip’s son, born of one of the Buff Orpingtons.  I only guess Buff Orp for the mama because he really isn’t red like the RiR-cross chicks.

Let’s look at Dani (the red rooster show here), in comparison. This is a younger picture, but he was a deep deep red by the time he went to freezer camp.

Felix started out as a cinnamon colored chick, looked butter scotchy as a teen, and while his reds are coming out (Pip’s mother was RiR), he doesn’t have the same depth or shade of red as Dani.

And since we’ve established that Pip+Australorp gives me the Dalmies (Pongo and Perdie),that really only leaves my two Buff Orpingtons as potential mommas.

Felix has yet to find a place in the flock that suits him.  Both Dots and Pip chase him if goes after the ladies and tries to mate. Part of that is because Dots naturally assumes all the ladies are his, and part because the ladies don’t want to mate with Felix.  He chases, pulls neck feathers and is awkward. The girls run, squawk, and scream until Dots or Pip (or both) go after him.  In other words, he’s where Pip was last summer.  Poor boy.

Some of the bolder hens peck at him, especially at bed time, and I have cleaned and fixed up minor comb injuries as the result of their pecking.

Sadly, he kind of brings it on himself and I don’t know what to tell the poor kid.  Not that he’d 1) listen or 2) understand me, him being a chicken and all.  So he’s just going to muddle his way through this on his own.

At least until his fate is decided.

A friend of mine named him Felicia, and I think she would prefer I keep him around so she can see him the next time she visits.  I have talked to her about it and she has been trying to find a place for him somewhere near her (in Indiana)but let’s face it.  With the threat of avian flu, it’s not likely too many people will want a rooster from an unknown flock out of state.  Even a mostly tame one.

However, I’m included to keep him and see how it goes.  If he can find a balance with his papa and grandpapa (Pip and Dots respectively), and my hens don’t start getting over mated, then by all means… he could stay.  We’re talking about adding more babies later this spring anyway.  (More on that later.)

But there is this little (not so little) guy to consider.

Luke, formerly Leia. Who started crowing not to long ago and hasn’t stopped since.

I mentioned previously that Luke and his sister, Padme, where scared of going outside.   Padme has gotten over it.  She is finally starting to realize that she is a hen and should be outside doing Hen Things.

Luke?  He’s not too sure about this concept of outside hen things.  He will stay inside, sit on the roost and crow for her (or someone else) to join him.  He has a loud, bold as brass little “Ooo-oo-Oooo!” (Because it’s not quite an Rrr-r-Rrr yet.)  and sometime she does come back.   Sometimes he gives up and goes outside to find her.

What’s interesting to me is that Dots allows Luke to do his Ooo-oo-Ooo.

Last spring when little Black Jack was learning to crow (at 9 weeks, not 20 like Luke), Dots assumed it was a threat to his dominance and went on the offensive. I had to rehome little Jack just to keep him safe and ensure a peaceful integration.

But Luke,having been hatched by Abby, raised as a winter baby (like Pip), is not a stranger. He and Dots both crow for me every morning when I go to let them outside.  He crows for me (or, for his sister, or for whomever…) when he is in the coop… and sometimes when he is outside.  He crows more than Pip does.  And definitely more than Felix does.

I wonder if my scaredy little EE isn’t going to turn out to be more dominant of the 3 younger roosters?

Or if Dots just hasn’t noticed because he has been more focused on keeping Felix and Pip in their places?

I am hoping that things stay peaceful.   Again, we are talking about adding more chicks this year… Little Dude wants to hatch Barred Rocks for 4-H.  So if things stay peaceful, and the hens aren’t getting overmated… well, I’d like to keep all four of them as see how it goes

This past Fall, we sent Dani, plus Abby’s four young rooster (my Boys of Summer) to the Freezer Camp. I kept for a long while, hoping that someone would buy or otherwise take the Sumtaler’s off my hands.  But in the meantime, Dots and Pip got very spoiled by having a lot of ‘extra eyes’ watching over the girls.  There were roosters with hens everywhere.  So Dots could spend time with his favorite ladies and forget that he ‘had to chase Pip’ and yet, there was back up in case of unforeseen danger.

I have noticed since their departure from the flock, that Dots and Pip seemed to have their “hands” full with the ladies.  Both of them in the coop while most the hens were outside. Who’s looking after the ladies?

So I think that one or two more roosters won’t hurt, provided they all get along and don’t hurt the hens.  Currently, Felix spends a lot of time outside with the hens.  He is trying to impress them.  A couple of them will squat for him to mate with now.  Most of them still find him annoying.  But again, they thought the same things about Pip last year.

So we’re going to try it.  See how things go, and decide from there if the dynamics need to change or the flock needs thinning.

And now, because I can… here’s Luke making funny faces at the camera: