The Difference a Year can Make

Tags

backyard chickens, Bird, Comb, Poultry, pullets, Wattle

It’s been just over a year since we added to our flock.  Look how tiny Ginger was!

When we got them, we made a deal that we weren’t going to name them, since someday they will become food.  For awhile, Ginger was known as “Little Peeper No. 1”.  But it’s too hard not to name them when it’s such a small flock.  You get to know them individually, and their personalities really shine through.  Ginger was the perfect name for her.

And here she is a year later.

So very grown up!  She’s a big bird, this one.  The frostbite on her comb is almost totally healed.  The little black parts on her comb fell off, and it is actually re-growing (amazing, stuff, I know).  The dry skin on her wattles is flaking off, too.  And her neck feathers have grown in very nicely.

She had a tough winter.  We all had a tough winter.

But now, the redness is returning to her comb and wattles, and she is presenting hardcore every time I come near her, so I’m thinking eggs in about a week or so.

And the temperature is finally (FINALLY) rising.  We hit +10C yesterday!  Hurrah!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Related articles

• What’s with the wattle? (thenaturalpoultryfarmingguide.org)

New Girl

Tags

animals, backyard chickens, Chicken, Coop, Poultry, pullets

Last Thursday, I packed Marianne into a cardboard box and drove her out of town to Pop’s Coops.  He toured me around the place (totally awesome!) and traded Marianne for Scruffy aka Oh Black Betty (Bam A Lam).  She’s an Ameracauna (like Liesl) and will lay blue eggs.

Even though it was only three months ago that I introduced two new hens into the flock, I had completely forgotten what a ruckus Greta and Liesl make when a new girl enters the coop.  Even Ginger was very vocal about it, and she’s usually so quiet.  Scruffy isn’t having an easy time with this transition.  She mostly stays in the coop or roosts or hides in a box. Friday morning was a mess.  All the girls had to lay at the same time and Scruffy was in one of the nesting boxes.  Oh the noise!  I took my iPod dock outside and blared music to cover the squawking, and actually, the music calmed the girls down.

Please, please, please let this transition be smooth.  Come on, girls.  Make friends fast!

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Marianne?

Tags

backyard chickens, chicken behavious, egg laying, noise chicken, pullets

Marianne.  We need to have a little talk.

I’m going to be blunt and just get right to the point. Do you think you’re a rooster?  Do you think it’s appropriate for a hen to bok and squawk at 5:30 a.m. every morning for nearly TWO HOURS?!

We thought this behaviour would subside once you starting laying.  But no.  If anything, it’s become worse.  Especially if any of the other girls dare to be in the coop when you want to lay your egg.  You could just go into the nesting box, but no, you need to lay your egg in the middle of the coop.  Why?  Why, Marianne?

And now you’ve started to molt.  Don’t deny it – your tail is starting to look a little bare, and I’ve seen your downy little feathers floating around the run.  Is this why you’ve been so noisy and bossy?

Marianne, this has to stop.  Not the molting, you go right ahead and molt.  The noise, Marianne.  The noise has to stop.  The squawking has got to stop.  The neighbours will not be bought off with the fresh eggs if you continue to wake them up at 5:30 a.m.  I will not continue to be bought off with fresh eggs if you continue to wake me up at 5:30 a.m.  I am not a morning person, Marianne.  I am not.  If this continues, you will be soup.  I am not joking.

Okay.  I promise I will try to distract you in the morning with treats, such as heads of cabbage and yogurt with blueberries, and, failing that, I will throw on my robe and run into the yard and try to calm you down.  But you must promise that you’ll at least try to be distracted by my lame attempts to keep you calm, and put in a good effort to curb your squawky ways.

Just remember:

Coop Renos

Tags

animals, chickens, Coop, pets, pullets

The renovations have started on 204 C. The lumber has been cobbled together (some donated, some bought), the plans have been drawn, and the building has begun.

And what do the residents of 204 C think of all this activity?

Well, Greta seems more concerned with basking in the sunshine, while fanning her feathers and twisting her body in weird ways . . .

. . . while Liesl and Ginger enjoy taking dirt baths in the back corner of the run.  Marianne was unavailable for comments at the time of this interview.  We can only guess that she’s equally as oblivious to the upcoming renovations.

(Look at the gorgeous waddle and comb on Ginger.  What a good looking chicken!)

In other news, the peonies have bloomed.  Huzah!

LIKE THIS POST?  CHECK OUT THESE PREVIOUS POSTS FROM DREAMBLES:

• Tour de la Coop (dreambles.com)
• Grand Re-Opening of the Nesting Box (dreambles.com)
• New Girls in the Coop (dreambles.com)
• Coop Wars (dreambles.com)

Grand Re-Opening of the Nesting Box

Tags

animals, Chicken, Chicken coop, Nest box, pets, pullets

If you took the Tour de la Coop, you’d see that Will designed the coop to have an easily accessible nesting box from which to gather eggs.

Well, when the Little Honkers arrived this spring, they decided that the nesting box was a great place to hide from the Big Girls, and an even better place to sleep at night.

Ginger poking her head out of the nesting box. She looks so young! They grow up so fast. Sigh.

So, sadly, the nesting box was closed for business.  Barricades were put in place, and a smaller, temporary roost was set inside the coop.  The Little Honkers soon learned to sleep on the smaller roost at night, but wouldn’t venture up onto the Big Girl roost.  Until two nights ago.  Sometime during the day, the playing in the coop got out of control, and someone knocked over the small roosting bar.  Instead of setting it upright, I decided to see what would happen when they finally went to bed for the night.  I peeked in shortly after bedtime, and there they were – all happily roosting on the same bar.  Hurrah!  They really are a flock now.  So the temporary roost came out, the barricades came down, and the nesting box is a nesting box once more.

Now to re-train the Big Girls where to lay their eggs . . .

Love, Actually

Tags

animals, Bird, Chicken, flock, Pecking order, pullets

Okay, maybe “love” is a bit of an exaggeration, but I now have proof positive that my chickens no longer hate each other.  Here they are, all in the run, sharing food and water, and NO PECKING!

Greta has allowed the Little Honkers to be part of the flock.  Oh, she still chases them a bit and pecks them, but it’s much more gentle and the chase never lasts long.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  I can relax now.  My chicken mama work is done (for the moment).  It’s lovely to see all my feather-babies getting along.  Finally.

Now if only the Little Honkers would start laying eggs . . .

Clucking in the Rain

Tags

pullets, rain, spring

Oh boy, is it rainy here!  Our rain barrels are full and overflowing.  It’s a lovely spring rain.  Warm, humid, fresh.

The girls don’t seem to mind.  I think they rather like it.  Greta and Liesl are soaked and covered in mud – they’ve been happily scratching and digging for earthworms.  The Little Peepers prefer to hang out in the coop (“prefer” might be the wrong word – Greta keeps chasing them back in every time they try to come out).  I tossed a tarp over the run this morning because it was starting to turn into one big mud puddle. Gotta give them some place to relax and dry out!

Quick! Let’s pig out before Greta gets back!

The Little Peepers are growing so fast.  In fact, I don’t think I can call them Little Peepers anymore.  Just this week, they’re voices started to change (poor teenage chickens).  Gone are the sweet little “peep peep peep” sounds.  They’ve been replaced with strange, raspy honks and clucks.  They sound a bit like they’ve been smoking for twenty years.  Awww, the awkwardness of adolescence.  Their tail feathers have filled out nicely, and their faces and combs are beginning to turn a deep red.  These are all signs of forthcoming eggs – hopefully within a couple more weeks.  So very egg-citing (oh boo, I know, I couldn’t help myself!)

Coop Wars

Tags

animals, pets, pullets

Greta stormed the coop yesterday.

The weather here has turned from unseasonably warm and lovely, to bitterly cold and rainy. Ugh. I had put the Little Peepers in the coop for the day to keep them warm. Trouble is, they don’t like to stay in the coop during the day, so I had to block the door with a grate to keep them inside. Liesl had laid her egg earlier that morning, so I didn’t think the big girls would need to get inside.

I was wrong.

Around 2 p.m., I heard, “BuhKAHK, bok, bok, bok, bok, BuhKAHK, bok, bok, bok, bok, BuhKAHK!” Alarmed, I threw on my jacket and ran outside. I found the Little Peepers walking dazedly around the run, Liesl calmly pecking at her ration, and Greta in the coop, settling down to lay an egg.

Apparently, she had knocked down the grate, kicked the Peepers out, and taken over the coop. That’s a tough old bird.

Needless to say, Greta and the Little Peeps are still not getting along.

You wanna mess with me? Bring it on!

Making Friends with 7:30 a.m.

Tags

chickens, Earth Day, morning, pets, prairies, pullets

The Little Peepers have managed to do what no job in the world has ever been able to do to me: they’ve turned me into a morning person.  Sort of.

Chickens get up with the sun. For the past two weeks, I have been out of bed by 7:30 a.m.  Quick shower, get dressed, coffee, feed the dogs, and I’m out the door by 8 a.m. to take care of the Little Peepers.

I still have to drag myself a bit, but for the most part, I look forward to it. The neighbourhood is quiet. All I hear is silence (the definition of silence being the absence of man-made noise). It is, as Sharon Butala put it so eloquently, the perfection of the morning.

Clear, pristine, quiet, a slight chill. I find a sunny spot to stand in and warm my hands and face, while the girls explore the yard. It reminds why I love the prairies. I would never have a morning like this living in Toronto. I listen to the bird song, to the hawks and falcons, to the sparrow protecting her nest, to my girls peeping and clucking happily to themselves as they forage and eat grass. I inspect the yard, see which plants have buds, see if there’s any new green stuff poking its head through the dirt.

I finally know what it means to get out of bed with a purpose. When I’m taking care of my chickens, I feel like a human being.  And Morning, you’re not such a jerk after all. In fact, I like you.  Sort of.

Happy Earth Day.

Their bottom feathers remind me of fancy crinolines peeking out from underneath a party dress.

Empathizers Anonymous

Tags

animals, empathy, pets, pullets

I empathize.  Too much.  Especially when it comes to animals.  I anthropomorphize and then I empathize.  All this empathy gets me in trouble.  My husband has banned me from the SPCA (with good reason – I would come home with all the dogs).  I capture spiders and ladybugs in my house and release them back into the wild.  I bought an electric mouse trap that zaps mice dead in less than 10 seconds so that they don’t spend twenty minutes writhing in pain stuck in a wooden trap.

All this is leading me to my two new chickens – the Little Peepers.  I’ve had them exactly one week and three days.  What an anxious one week and three days!  It’s not easy introducing two new teenage chickens into an established flock of two crusty old hens.  I just want them all to get along; they just want to peck the hell out of the smallest chicken.  (I swear, she doesn’t just peep; she cries.)

Sometimes I wish I could just turn my empathy down a little.  I wish I had an empathy dimmer switch.  Although, the other side of the coin is apathy.  I guess I’d rather feel too much than nothing at all.  I suppose the trick is, like everything else in this crazy life, to find a balance.

Why is everybody always peckin' on me?