Placed an Order for Chicks

I currently have 6 hens and 1 rooster.  Two of the hens were hatched here, and are half Copper Maran and half Plymouth Barred Rock.  They turned out to be a beautiful black with a green sheen.  But I am still unhappy with the loss of my little Sultan hen, Cracker.  So when My Pet Chicken http://www.mypetchicken.com/  sent out the e-mail that spring orders would begin on Dec. 1; I placed an order for 4 Sultan hens and 1 Easter Egger hen. My Pet Chicken is perfect for my mini urban farm, because I can order as few as 3, day old chicks and they arrive at my house by mail.   I've even bought 2 coops from them.

I only have one hen that lays a green egg, so since the shipping is so high and it is the same if I ordered 3 or 5 chicks, I went ahead and ordered 5.  It was kind of sad to have just one Sultan.  I always thought Cracker must be lonely.  She was much smaller than the others and could not see very well.  When she was out of the coop, she always sat under something like the back of the coop or a bush.  Sometimes the chickens who were not raised with her would peck her in the head.  So when the new chicks arrive the end of March, I will keep them in a coop by themselves.

The little Sultan was always the friendliest chicken.  The boys loved holding her and even road her around in a wagon.

Either Gracie or StayedAtHome Made a Contribution Today

It's small at first, but it will get a lot bigger.

When I went out this morning (rather late this morning) to feed the goats and chicken, I found a surprise.  

Either Gracie (the one the golden retriever played roughly with) or StayedAtHome (she didn't fly over the fence) laid her very first egg. 

They are 1/2 Copper Maran and 1/2 Barred Rocks.  Gracie is in front.

Omelet, a Barred Rock, #1 Hen with all the attitude

I have been making various comments about how long it has taken for them to lay an egg. They are from the first eggs to ever hatch on my mini urban farm last March.  Little Ace and Cracker took turns sitting on the eggs until they hatched.  Gracie and StayedAtHome are half Copper Marans (father Big Foot) and half Plymouth Barred Rock (Mother Omelet).  Omelet is my best laying hen.  All the hens seem to have stopped laying since the days have gotten shorter and cooler.  Only Omelet has laid an egg the last 2 weeks. Omelet is my oldest chicken and she has never gone more than a day without laying.  Lately, she has gone from laying everyday to every other day.  Now she is laying a giant odd shaped egg.  I can't even close the egg carton; it is so big.

Little Ace's   New Egg   Omelet's

But today we celebrate Gracie or StayedAtHome's achievement.  Will the one you laid the beautiful brown egg please cluck loudly.  Just wish I knew which one came through.

StayedAtHome has a larger dark red comb.

Sharing a Summer Watermelon

Watermelons always remind me of my Uncle Lee's watermelon patch at the other end of Springhill Road from where I grew up in Swartz.  He and my Grandmother Murphy always had a huge garden, but Uncle Lee's specialty was watermelons.  I remember my sisters and I going and picking out a watermelon that we were too small to carry.  Usually we would just drop it a few feet from the patch and eat it right there.  Just scooping out the juicy heart with our dirty fingers or biting it from the rind and letting juice run down our chins.  It actually took me a long time to like watermelon cold; since I grew up eating it right out of the garden.

So this summer I have shared watermelon with the grandkids, goats and chickens.  The first time I cut it, it is room temperature.  The remaining slices are saved for the next day so they are ice cold. There is an advantage to cold watermelon when it is 108 degrees outside.  I have learned to enjoy those slices as well.  I'm glad my grandkids like it.  My children and their dad never really acquired a taste for the red juicy melon.  I think the red ones with seeds are the best.  I have never seen the kind my uncle grew.  He called them Sugar Babies.  They were round and very dark solid green.

I've discovered that Dottie Belle will not eat watermelon cold. At first I thought she just didn't like it, but when I offered her a warm piece, she gobbled it up.  Gypsy will take it anyway I give it to her and she will even jump on the table and take it away from me. She only weighs about 40 pounds now, but she is going to be a force to be reckoned with when she is grown and 70 pounds of pure determination.

Omelet is eating while Little Ace is waiting.  Dottie should just leave.

I find it very interesting to watch the 4 hens and rooster, Big Foot sharing a slice.  This is where the pecking order really comes into play.  Big Foot, of course, gets all he wants.  Hens #1, Omelet, and #2, Little Ace take turns in that order. 

That leaves #3 Dottie and poor #4, Sunny with not getting any until I let them out of the coop by themselves. I try to even things up around here.

Chicken Review 6-26-2011

Mostly good news for the chicken

3 of the baby chicks

Cracker, the Sultan

coop.  About 2 weeks ago, I could not take the smell of the 4 little chicks in the house anymore. The crate would stink right after I cleaned it.  So I decided they would move into the coop where they were born with Little Ace, their surrogate mother and Cracker, the nanny hen.  That is what caused the bad news for this update.  Actually, chickens are not nice animals.

I've really never been partial to birds, but chickens are interesting and provide eggs, so I have pet chickens.  I put the 4 chicks in the hutch part of the coop and Little Ace and Cracker where down in the run.  I went into the house to remove the crate and when I returned the smallest chick had jumped down into the run with the grown hens.  But Little Ace did not recognize her baby chick.  In fact, she had beaten it up pretty badly.  The top and bottom parts of its beak no longer aligned and one eye was closed or gone.  I put it back up in the hutch and closed the door so they could not get down in the run with the hens and the hens could not get to them.  I really expected to find the youngest badly hurt chick dead the next morning.  But it has been 2 weeks and it is still the most energetic chick of them all.  After a couple of days of keeping the chicks and hens separated, I just moved Little Ace into the coop with the other grown chickens.  Cracker and the 4 chicks seem to get along quite well.  Three of the chicks have tripled their size.  The smallest one still has a misaligned beak and only one eye, but she is doing great.

One eye and crooked beak.

The 4 hens in the other coop definitely have their pecking order worked out.











Of course, Big Foot, the rooster is top chicken. Trinity and his family came over a couple of nights ago and we twisted off Big Foot's spurs that had turned into small knives.  It was rather interesting, but I forgot to video it.  Trinity grabbed Big Foot by his legs while he was asleep, held him upside down and simply twisted off the spurs with a pair of pliers.  The rooster was paralyzed upside down so he was no problem.

Omelet

Omelet, a Plymouth Barred Rock, is the #1 hen.  That means she decides where she is going to scratch and peck at the dirt and no other hen had better challenge her for that spot. She is the only hen I have left from the original 4 that I got from my sister, Lenora, in March of 2009.

Little Ace

Little Ace, a Copper Maran, is hen #2 in the pecking order.  I got Little Ace with the order of chicks that included Big Foot and Cracker in June 2010.  So only Omelet can challenge her for a pecking spot.

Dottie

Dottie, a  Silver Laced Wyandotte, is third in the pecking order.  She mostly stays away from Omelet and now Little Ace.  I was surprised that Little Ace was able to be second since she had not lived with the others for so long.  But maybe they understand seniority on the property.

Sunny

 




And Sunny, the green egg laying Ameraucana, has to keep her distance from all the other hens.  When I let them out of the coop to free range, she runs in the opposite direction of the others.  Usually, she goes to the Ligustrum hedge along the back fence.






Big Foot sometimes has to step in to maintain the peace between the hens.  When I let them all out, Big Foot will do a "Broken Wing Dance" around the hen that he is particularly interested in.  It is very strange looking, but he does it every time.

Chickens may not be nice to each other, but they offer an interesting study of basic animal interactions.     

3 Cheeps From the Coop

Connor with chick #1

I posted on Facebook the hatching of the chick on Thursday, since Blogger was down for many hours.

1st chick, Pooh and the other 2 against the bear.

Yes, they eat on nice china.

I was right about 2 chicks hatching Friday! Another one from Omelet's egg and one from a green egg or Easter Egger. They hatched a few hours apart and were still wet and couldn't walk very well.  The one the hatched Thursday was running around, drinking water and eating.  It must take about 24 hours for a chick to get hungry and strong enough to eat.

You can really tell the 3 different ages.

3rd chick just hatched.

Tonight all three are eating, drinking, running around and cheeping.

 

I do feel a little guilty taking them from Little Ace after she has sat on the eggs for 29 days.  None of the 3 that are left have hatched today.  Surely 2 more will hatch tomorrow.  I'm thinking about leaving the ones that hatch now with Little Ace.  I just don't know if they will be okay.  I don't have room for 6 more chickens, so I could afford to experiment.
I just hate seeing dead chicks.

See the yellow fuzzy butts.

  
Grandson, Chase, has named the first chick, Pooh, because when Chase came over I had put a little Pooh Bear in the crate for it to snuggle with. Tonight, I can no longer tell the first 2 chicks apart.  They are both black with yellow on their wing tips and fuzzy yellow butts.  The other one is a little strange looking.  It appears to be all black, but there is a hint of a brown shading.  When it grows up it will likely be mostly brown.

Anyway they are safe and warm under the red heat lamp and snuggling with Pooh and each other.
Just 2 brown eggs and 1 green one left to hatch.

Is There an Egg Stuck up her **@?

Little Ace sitting in a nesting box.

In the late afternoon of April 15th, I noticed that Little Ace had not laid an egg, but had been sitting in the nesting box all day.  She didn't come out to eat or drink.  I told Don there might be a problem with her.  The next day she did the same thing.  I read on the internet that sometimes an egg will get stuck in a hen and, of course, if it doesn't come out, she will die. I read that one could try and soak the hen in warm water, put mineral oil up inside of her, and stick your fingers inside her to try to remove the egg. I didn't sleep at all that night worrying about that sweet little hen.

Connor with young Little Ace

Omelet

Big Foot the Copper Maran

Remember Little Ace is Andrew Connor Edward's little chicken and he is still waiting for it to turn into a rooster, like Chase's chick did.  When we are talking about Little Ace, we say he instead of she.  Little Ace is lucky to be alive.  Omelet, the nasty Plymouth Barred Rock, tried to kill her when I moved the 3 new chicks to the chicken coop.  I went out to check on how they were getting along and found the back of Little Ace's neck was almost pecked in two.  Don told me that surely that chicken was going to die.  I put all 3 of the new chicks, they were about 8 weeks old, back into the dog crate that they had been in since they were one day old. I put an antibacterial ointment on Little Ace's wound. Well, obviously, Little Ace lived.  She is the nicest, friendliest little chicken.  She is a Copper Maran, like the rooster.

During my sleepless night, I read on the internet about hens brooding.  They stop laying eggs and sit on any eggs in the nesting box trying to hatch them. So the next morning, when Little Ace was still alive and not looking sick at all, but still sitting in the nesting box, I decided she was brooding. I moved all the other chickens into the old chicken coop and just left Little Ace and Cracker in the new coop, because some chicken (Omelet?) pecked holes in 2 eggs that Little Ace was sitting on.  Cracker is a nice chicken and grew up with Little Ace, so they are buds.

3 nights ago I read about how to hatch chicks with a brooding hen.  Of course I am starting 12 days into a 21 day process, so very little has been done right.  But the real question is, who knows how to hatch chicks best--a hen or a person?  We will see, because Little Ace is way ahead of me on this.

I read that about 15 days into the process, that I need to candle the eggs to be sure if the embryo is developing.  If it isn't, the egg will rot, then explode the rotten egg all over the other eggs, and smother the other embryos. Good grief.  Trinity said that he remembered in Charlotte's Web that the rat found a rotten egg and kept it.  It did eventually explode on him.  Bridget and I don't remember that part. I think that's a guy thing--exploding eggs :(  So tonight when Little Ace was asleep, all of us went out with bright flash lights and looked inside the eggs one by one.

I reached under the sleeping hen and removed each egg.  Trinity shined the light through each one to see if there was an embryo.  I then numbered them and put them back under Little Ace.  Right at the end, when I picked her up to see if I had missed any eggs, she gave me a gentle little peck.  Just a reminder that she was in charge of them.

The step that I did not know about until 3 days ago, was that I should have collected all the eggs and then put the eggs that I wanted to hatch under the brooding hen.  By doing that, they would all start developing at the same time and hatch in 21 days.  But I didn't know what was going on.  Remember I had been afraid that there was an egg stuck in her.  The blog I read said that it will be disastrous if they all progress several days apart.  So we are happily rolling along into a disaster.  What do hens do that don't have humans to collect the eggs so they can start at the same time?  Hopefully, all will end well and we will find out that animals can somehow survive and multiply without us.

None of them are my eggs?

 Anyway, Little Ace is sitting on 7 eggs. Five light brown ones that belong to nasty Omelet and 2 green ones that are New Sunny's, the Easter Chicken.  The original Sunny Side Up chicken died a few months ago. So all 7 eggs are half Copper Maran, because that's what the rooster is and half Barred Rock or Easter Chicken. None of them were laid by Little Ace, but she will be their mother.
Oops. We might not should say Mother. That means GIRL.

The dark brown eggs are Little Ace's.

 

After candling each egg, it appears that brown egg #5 will be the first to hatch. We could see a well defined chick embryo in it. It is very difficult to see through the shell of the green eggs, so we are not sure of anything with them yet. 

But something will happen in about 6 days; we are just not sure what.  I will keep you posted.