Up early, getting ready for the sheep shearing today and just looking through my picture files.   I have several cool chicken pictures and thought I would update the world with the super important goings-on of the Windhaven chicken flocks.  You know, you want to know…

Well, Miss Buffy is finally starting to fit in with the free range flock.   She’s still not a member of the inner peep circle of cool chicks, but she’s no longer hiding and acting super weird.  She still loves Maggie and you can walk right up to her and pick her up for a snuggle.  She likes it.  I’m just glad that she’s fitting in and is one of the girls.

 

The meat chickens are doing fairly well…  we’ve had a few losses this time around.  We lost one for just no good reason about a week and a half ago, and then we lost two this weekend due to cannibalism.  Not fun.  it’s a fairly common problem, they start pecking on each other hard and it’s hard to stop.  We had to isolate a few of the birds and then added a bunch of stuff to the brooder, like leafy branches, little logs, a few rocks and then scattered grains throughout the litter to give them something more constructive to do.  And places to hide.  Hoping that helps.  We will be building a chicken tractor end of this week and moving some outside…  hope that helps too.  They say cannibalism in meat chickens can result from a whole litany of issues…  too many, not enough water, not enough food, one gets injured and they all attack, lack of things to do, lack of minerals, wrong food, not enough calcium, not enough grit, mis-matched ages in chicks, and my favorite, just mean chickens.  So we tried to resolve as many as we could and then medicated and used this staining med called BlueKote on the attackees rumps to cover any redness or blood.  It’s always something!

Our three larger barred rock pullets made the graduation to the lil’ coop and they are so adorable in there.  This is a picture of when they were still in the brooder…  love the little meat chicks puzzling over the BIG chick in the place.  They are calm and sweet birds with a lovely disposition.  When I go in there to visit them, the little guys swarm over you and will jump up in your lap if you sit down!    Since they are BARred rocks…. and we already have some with rock names, we went with mixed bar drink names….   Margarita, Daiquiri and Martini!  We will be adding another batch of feathered out pullets to the lil’coop sometime this week.  Just waiting for the weather to get a WEEE bit better in the early morning hours.   We are still getting hard frosts!!!  You would think that it would start to get a little bit better since it’s almost APRIL!!!!

Kathryn….  posing by the water tank.

Argent and Flipper are such good rooster brothers.  Here is Argent out strolling in the wind with a few of his ladies.  Everyone is doing great in the new coop and are starting to lay about a dozen eggs a day.  That’s lovely for Maggie’s empire.  They are so funny to see walking across the chicken tube and out their little ladder to the yard.  They are doing a pretty good job of eating most of the grass and the lilies that are in their yard.  I think we will try and dig up some of the lilies, but we have SO many all over, it might not get done.  But it’s nice for them to get some sunshine and dig holes and scratch.  We put scratch grains out there for them to discover and they love that for sure.

All of Maggie’s new hens on their roost for the night.   The new coop in the poultry barn is doing well.  They are finally starting to settle in.  For awhile, we were doing a lot of changes and construction and that was a little stressful on them.  We tried to do it in a mild and easy way, but still, hens like quiet routine.  But we’re pretty much done now, just a few little things we’d like to do but nothing that has to be done.  Maggie wants to paint their doors, that sort of thing.  We built the second little chick brooder last week and that has come in very handy.  In a couple weeks we are going to build a big turkey chick brooder for the far end of the barn, and hopefully, get Maggie’s poults soon.  We kind of want to have most of the meat chickens and other chicks transitioned out to their big girl pens before we bring in the poults.  Just so Maggie only has one set of babies to deal with.  Little chicks need a lot more care and watching over then feathered teenagers.  Plus, it’s her birthday this weekend coming up, the big 18 and they are going with their father on a big trip to Chicago!!!   So she’s going to be busy for a wee bit.

Turkey Girl is doing really well.   We’re so happy to have her, she is our training turkey.  She thinks she is a chicken, however, and every so often one of the rooster boys will try and have his way with her, but it always ends up in disaster.  She is EASILY double the size of our largest roo!  She gets along nicely in there, and the hens don’t seem to mind their huge sister.  One day I’d like to see us get a beautiful blue slate tom to be her husband!  Perhaps they will set a nest of eggs… that would be awesome.  She is really a beautiful hen, all silver blue and just a nice bird.  We’ll have to save out a nice tom from our production flock of turkeys this year for her.  I believe she would like that.

All the birds in the lil’ coop are doing nicely.  We dumped a whole big wheelbarrow of barn litter in there for them and they have been scratching and digging in that like little kids at the beach!  They are so funny.  We made a secondary run for them, almost double the size of their first yard and just as soon as we get the little door finished and just a wee bit more fencing in the back, we will open that up for them to graze and hunt bugs in.  Our idea is to use it like rotational pasture for them…  let them in for a few days, and then let it rest for a few days.  And then open it again.  Since they have their first yard, they can still get out and scratch, do chicken things.   But then, they can also have access to the wild section as well, here and there.  I believe that will cause them to be very excited!  Chickens do like to graze!

We would let them all free range, but with over 100 chickens, that is just asking for trouble.  We have about 30 that free range and that is just enough to avoid the whole place being a chicken litter box.  Actually 3 are going to live with a good friend and I think a few are going to start living in the new coop because we would like that number down to about 25 or so.  Too many roaming chickens seems to attract predators as well, and we sure don’t want that.

Of course, when I write the blog and mention chicken deaths, part of me thinks, oh my gosh, it seems like a lot.  But then I remind myself that we have only had 6 deaths since the new year.   One chick died shortly after birth.  One nugget died at about 3 weeks, unknown reason.  Little Marie the pullet was attacted in the lil coop by peers and perished.  One older hen was murdered by Domino, the mean roo.   And now two nuggets have died from attack from their peers.  Considering that we had at one point 130 chickens, that is really a low rate of death.  Aside from the turkeys last year, we haven’t lost a single bird to predation or disease.  We’ve lost a few to old age, and one or two from suspected croup impaction.  Sometimes day old chicks just don’t thrive.  Livestock and farming is a bit numbers game.  The more you get, the higher the chances for illness and death.  And of course, there are just natural causes… chickens don’t live forever and if you buy older hens, you are going to have a few cross the rainbow bridge.  I’m just really thankful that our losses are really very light.  I just dread some of these blogs I read, when they have to say, “Lost half my flock last night to a ____________  (fill in the blank…. dog, hawk, coon, mink, fox, coyote….)  Oh thank goodness we don’t seem to have that trouble.  Maggie would be very upset if something tried to hurt her birds!  Me too!   I love the chickens….

This is Carolyn, one of our original hens, a nice big blue cochin hen.  I love her feathering, in fact, I love all the blue birds…  some might call them silver or gray but in the animal world those are all considered blues.  She is so lovely.  All big and fluffy.  She’s a heavy breed and much more fluffy then the thinner trim hens.  She and her sister Susan are some of our first ladies and are still going strong.  Nice birds.

Well, the shearers are due today and I’ve got some chores to work on and a few cards to get done today…. should be a nice calm and crazy day!!!  Pictures and video to follow later tonight, perhaps tomorrow!  We’ll see how it all goes!!!!   Can’t wait, should be fun!!!

 

 

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