It’s no surprise, we love our chickens!  And so when we saw Miss Nancy Ann hopping across the yard and favoring her left leg, we were worried.  We caught her easily, she’s a nice girl anyway and doesn’t mind being picked up, we gave her a field vet check over.  No obvious trauma, no wounds or bumps or open sores, just a tucked up and tender tootsy.  No bumblefoot or anything like that.

My best guess is that she strained or pulled a muscle in her leg.  We’ve seen hens perform some pretty amazing aerial acrobatics and of course, they are not the most graceful landers in the bird world.  She seemed in good spirits, clean eyes and nose and such, so we decided to pop her in the recuperative coop,  with a nice bowl of water and food and some nice fluffy straw and a little quiet to see if confining her a few days will give her a chance to heal up.  And we can keep an eye on her.  So far, day two, she’s still doing nicely, just not putting any weight on her little drumstick.  She did lay an egg though!  She might come to enjoy the Hotel Windhaven Ritz with it’s room service and daily oohs and ahhs and hen cuddles and treats!

 

Bucka and his gals.  I think it’s kind of funny that they prefer to sleep in the feed room on these little shelves that we don’t use.  They line up at night and all seem kinda funny on them, tucked up high and away from any meanies.  We do have to scrap those shelves now and then from nocturnal deposits but it’s not too bad.  Miss Mildred, the white and red gal next to King Bucka, she had been sleeping out in a tree for a week or two!  And nothing could get her to come in, but then all the sudden, she changed her mind and has been roosting right next to her man every night.  I think he sweet talked her into changing her wild hen ways and join him in a Bucka Roo sandwich with Katheryn, Goldie and Bionca!

 

Now this is an odd couple if you ever asked me.  The bigger bird on the right is Copper, Bucka’s first hatched son with Eleanor.  And the little guy next to him is Rory, a roo that left with some chicks that Miss Lucy hatched out in Toledo for us, and came back because SHE was a HE…  He’s a Amerucana cross with Bucka Roo.  He’s young, about 4 months or so.  Well, at first, Bucka and Copper chased him around and beat the stuffing outta him.  Nothing permanent, just a good ruffle feather “welcome to MY barnyard” greeting that Bucka offers all young roos in his presence.  And Copper was in the fray for a good kick and peck for good measure.   And Rory, he stuck to the bushes and shadows of the yard, staying clear of the dynamic duo.

Well, all the sudden, Rory and Copper start bunking together on top of the feed room door!  Just like old pals.  And then I see them walking around the yard together, chatting, keeping tabs on each other.  They are half brothers, after all.  I can’t help but think they are comparing notes on their father and possibly plotting his overthrow!  One can never know…

 

Now over in the poultry barn group, Raven, an Maranucana half breed from our lines and Sheldon, a lovely barred rock boy, are the king roos of that flock.  We’re down to eight hens in that group and I can’t wait to transfer a few of the older pullets over there to make a little bigger group.  They started out around 15 or 16 but then a few of the ladies escaped to be in the free range flock and two ladies died…  these things happen.  One was much older and expired during one of the super hot days and then another was killed by a coon.

I’m really thankful, we haven’t had a death for a few weeks now and that’s a hard thing to avoid when you have 120+ chickens and at least 15 or so are elderly gals.  They all seem to be doing very nicely!  Yeah!  I like that.  It’s no fun to find a dead hen or roo and have to wonder and puzzle why…  just sad!

But Raven is the head roo and Sheldon is happy to be his first lieutenant.  Sheldon does get a little action now and then, mostly when Raven is in the coop handling things in there.  But if Raven is out, the girls are off limits to poor Sheldon.  But then he’s a younger roo and that is pretty much how it goes.  He is very good at watching over the ladies though, and is learning from Raven, who is just all dude right now.  We had Flipper and Argent in this flock as the main roos, but Flipper choked to death on something and then Argent was being WAY too rough on the girls and we finally sold him at auction.  Rooster adjustment is a sad but important part of having chickens.  Unfortunately, you really don’t need many of them, or really any of them, but we love our roosters and believe they perform a good job in our groups.  The hens really do like them, a few of them.  But when they get a little too amorous, something has to give.  The hens stop laying and end up looking so scraggly and abused!  We like our birds to have a nice chicken life, so, well, Argent had to go.  And our egg production went right back up!

 

Now back in the little coop, we have two roos… Silver and Pierre.  This is Pierre.  He is a fancy wheaten French Marans roo and the photos really do not do him justice!  He’s simply stunning.  And he loves to be petted and fussed over.  He’s a real ham bone.  When he sees me with my camera, I swear he start posing.

 

This little pullet is in the lil’ coop and she’s so pretty!  She’s supposed to be a black star or a black sex link chicken, but she’s so much more auburn feathered than any others.   She’s a sweet litttle girl and I think she will be a lovely hen when she gets just a little older.  We have about 15 pullets in the lil’ coop right now and I can’t wait till they start laying, which should be soon.  They are about 4 to 5 months old and soon….  we should be finding those sweet little beginner eggs out there!   Maggie and I are going to build them a nice new nesting box soon.  We hope that will encourage their nesting and laying needs!

 

Silver is a funny roo…. he would like to be a grumpy old man, even though, he’s not that old.  He’s just about a year now.  He and Copper are the first two chicks we ever hatched here at the farm.  Funny, because he looks nothing like his brother!  Silver is beautiful, almost stunning, with his blue pants and his soft muttled barred rock feathering.  He’s my only rooster that would like to be a little nasty but I don’t let him.  Every so often he will puff up and think about attacking my leg, and when I see him do that, I grab ahold of him so fast his little bird brain spins!  And then I get him in a football hold and I just pet him and love on him and touch him and talk baby talk to him in front of all his peeps!  HAHA…  oh he hates it.  I set down on the little window seat and we just have a rooster love-a-thon and then eventually, I set him free and he always goes out in the yard and sulks for awhile.  It’s funny, but it works.  He will totally forget about it for at least a couple weeks until he remembers and thinks about it again.  Yesterday, as I was leaving, he ran over after me and puffed up a bit and I just turned and stood there and I’ll be darned if he didn’t immediately smooth down and act like he was going to scratch over here… yeah, this little bit here, oh, yeah, hmmm…. and then high tailed it out the door!  He’s a hoot.  I might just pick him up tomorrow and give him a little sugar!  That would ruffle his mantle a bit, I think.  he’s too beautiful to sell off just because he thinks he’s the boss.  After all, you want a wee bit of that for your main roosters.  Just not too much!

This is another little Black Star pullet and a Red Comet behind her.  We have 8 Black Stars and 5 Red Comets.  They are very nice little birds, known to be good production egg layers.  I can’t wait to see how they mature out!  Pretty ladies!

Just another day with all our lovely little chickens!!!!

 

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