The Three Houdini's

So we have these three chicks, they are seven weeks old.

And we needed our brooder, so they got to move outside to the Taj-Ma-Chicken this week.

Now the chickens in the Taj have been free ranging a lot during the day lately, but when we added these three, we started leaving the door closed.  Because we didn't want them getting out, thinking that we would never catch them again.

Well, these little buggers quickly found ways to escape.  No sooner would we nail shut one escape route, they would find another.

It got to the point where I would stop going and rounding them up, and just let them free range all day.  They never went far.  I found it ironic that the three little buggers were out free ranging, when the rest of the chickens were locked in the pen, so that these three wouldn't escape!!

I think that we have finally closed up the last of their escapes.  Now though, when they see me coming to the pen, they line up to execute their plan.... "you go left, I'll go right..... she'll never be able to catch us both!!  Then, while she's trying to catch you, I'll get out... and when she opens the door again to put us back in, it's your turn to run between her legs!!"

These guys are smart little buggers.  Th three Houdini's..... every now & then I look out the window and "damn.... the Houdini's are out again!!"

"Baby Dicken Come out of De Egg"

At Sunday School yesterday, the discussion was about new life, and what the "Easter Eggs" symbolize.

So the teacher asks the children (14 of them, Bud was the youngest, his third birthday was two weeks ago, oldest was 12, most were between 6 - 8) What the eggs symbolize, & why, and what is in them.

Buddy gets out of his chair, walks purposfully up to the teacher, who was sitting, puts his hands one on each of his knees, looks him straight in the eye, and nodding his head earnestly tells him "Baby Dicken come out of de egg." 

The attitude totally said "like, OBVIOUSLY!!"

Most Children Walk their Dogs....

My boy?  He takes his chickens for a walk:

The Mighty Mighty Chicken Ranch

I think we need to change our name.....

Taj-Mah-Chicken:
1 Bantam RIR roo
1 SPW Roo
1 Araucana Roo
1 Araucana Hen
1 Americauna Hen (Dolly)(I swear I didn't mean to name her... it happened by accident!!)
1 RIR Hen
1 Black sex-link Hen
6 juvenile Araucana's

Chick-De-Ville:
1 SPW Roo
2 SPW Hens
3 Chanty Hens
1 ISA Brown Hen

Basement:
2 SPW Hens
3 SPW Chicks (three weeks)

Bedroom:
3 day-old SPW chicks
10 day old Cuckoo Maran chicks
1 Cuckoo Maran still trying to hatch

Counter:
Another 15 eggs to go in the 'bator once it's been cleaned

We're Perfectly Normal....

We just have chickens living in the basement.

So this morning, Prospector informs me that the Americauna, who was living in the basement, has laid an egg in the centre of the coop floor now that she's moved out.

Also, the Wyandottes that have been moved inside, have laid an egg at the very back of their cage, and that he leaves me to collect that one.  Also, he suggests that we should maybe figure out some kind of laying box for the 'hospital,' so that they don't become accustomed to laying out of the boxes.

So I go downstairs, to collect said egg.

And completely forgot that the Wyandottes that are in there now, are not 'tame' like the Americauna was.  As in, with the Americauna, you would go downstairs, open the door, she would follow you to the feed, follow you back, and eat right out of your hand.  She was becoming more pet-like than farm animal like.

I open the cage door, and the egg is, way, way back there.  There is no way of getting it unless I either crawl through the chicken poop to it, or use a tool to reach it.

I choose tool.  Tool of choice is the broom... I can sweep it out.

This worked just fine with the Americauna.  She was tame, remember?

The Wyandottes, while being quite friendly, are not pets.  Not at all.  So they see a large tool coming towards them, and panic.  And one... flys out.

I have a loose hen in my basement. 

Now, I don't know about you, but my basement?  Is a dumping ground.  There are tools, old boxes, a pile of stuff that is headed for a yardsale, patio furniture waiting for warmer weather, etc.

Now, this nimble little hen can walk all over and around these landmines.

I..... cannot.

I chase her back & forth,and back & forth.

She got close to the cage at one point, so I opened the door, and tried to shoo her in.

I'm sure you all know what happened next.

Yes, now I have two hens running around my basement.

Eventually, one runs into the cage.  I don't know if it was the first or second escapee.

The other one keeps running to the back of the cage, and is trying to join her friend... but whenever she gets close to the cage door, I cannot open it without her running away, and can't leave it open, 'cause then I'll have... TWO HENS running around again!!

Eventually, I remember that the hospital is a extra large dog cage.

And that, it is a cage that is designed to be shrunk with a divider panel.

Also, that I tried to remove the panel a few days ago, but it was stuck on one side, so it is simply folded against the wall.

Once my brain started working, I got her in pretty quick... unfolded the divider, with the other hen on the far side of it, shooed the first hen in, then re-folded the divider.

I go now to make an egg box.... one that can be placed near the door!!

SOLD!

One dozen eating eggs: $3 (totally ripped ourselves off here without realizing it)
Seven hatching eggs: $17.50

dang birds are starting to earn their keep!!

Doing the Shuffle

Written by Prospector....

OK, this may be hard to follow, Bear with me.

Back in the fall, we recieved six Silver Pencilled Wyandotts (SPW). They have been housed together (2 roos, 4 girls) in the Coop-de-Ville

We had 3 Chanty hens in our other coop -  the TajMahChicken, along with three retired laying hens.

In the  basement we had a very sick Chanty Roo sharing a dog kennel with a very loving Americauna hen. We really loved that roo and that hen, and they loved each other.

Loved (past tense) because the roo was sick beyond hope, and is now an ex-rooster, dispatched this afternoon to the great beyond by the axe of judgement.

With the rooster gone, the Americauna was left alone. She needed a buddy. One of the SPW roos was assigned to the role today. He has been moved into the basement with the Americauna hen. We didn't want to introduce her to another flock alone, or she woulda got beat up pretty bad.

That left the other SPW roo with 4 girls, and no controls on breeding, so we split 2 hens away from his flock, and moved them into the TajMahChicken, awaiting the future re-introduction of the SPW roo that is currently being buddy to the Americauna. This made the Taj far fuller than the CoopDeVille.

To balance things out, we moved the 3 Chanty hens over to the Coop DeVille such that now our arrangement is...

Coop De Ville - 3 SPWs, 3 Chantys
TajMahChicken - 2 SPW hens, 1 ISA, 1 Black Sex Link, 1 RIR
Basement - 1 SPW Roo, 1 Americauna

Add to all this that we now have 3 SPW chicks and 3 Buff Orp chicks in the brooder, and 20 eggs (12 Cuckoo Marans, 4 SPW, 4 AmericaunaXChanty) in the 'bator, and it could get to being an interesting spring trying to integrate flocks. My next big move will be to set the chicks into a brooder in the basement near the Americauna in the hopes that she adopts them and they form a flock strong enough to stand up out there. What fun.

On Incubating - Part Two

So on Wednesday, when we had three chicks out, we realized that, um, we had no brooder.  Or chick feed.  Or, well, anything set up for these guys.  Because, well, we didn't actually expect a hatch.

So I zipped down tot he feed store, & bought chick starter & a chick waterer.  We had a chick feeder in the basement.

Then, Thursday morning, tried to figure out a brooder.  Ended up using a rubbermaid container, with a board laying across the top, and screwing a light bulb socket onto the board.  The socket is from my candler.  I need a new candler now (Well, the candler is fine... I just have to move the light bulb to the candler to use it, I can only use it as either a heat lamp or a candler now).

I also had the throw everything off the desk to make room.  Now I need to find new homes for everything.  At least I am de-cluttering though right?

And today, Prospector picked up the new dozen hatching eggs from the breeder.  I also have six more to add to the batch again.

On Incubating - Part One

So, I bought an incubator.

After doing a bunch of research, decided that the one for us was the Brinsea Octagon.  It can set 24 eggs at a time, which was half of what the hovabator's could hold, but the Brinsea's had a higher hatch rate.

So I ordered it, and had it shipped up from Florida, since retailers here don't sell them.  The only small incubator I could buy in Canada was the Hovabator.

So the Brinsea arrived, and I was itching to try it.  So we bought a dozen hatching eggs.  And saved a few of our own.  But the ones that we saved weren't collected under ideal conditions, so I really had no hopes of them hatching.  It was very cold when they were all laid, and I was afraid that they had gotten too cold out in the coop before being brought inside.  But, with the 'bator only half full, there was no harm in adding in the four eggs that we saved from the coop.

We set the eggs, and waited.  I turned the incubator three times a day.  On day 7 we candled them, and saw... only one chick.  Out of 16 eggs, there was only development in one.  We were disappointed.  I couldn't figure out what I had messed up.  But left them, just to see.

Then we got an email from the breeder that we had bought the eggs from, asking us to candle our eggs.  Apparently, she had just candled 2 dozen, and found a very poor rate of viability.  She offered to either replace with another breed within the week, refund our money, or replace with the same breed in a  month (after she'd had time to work out the problems, and introduce a new roo to the flock).

We candled, and found that we had lost our one viable one.

So we unplugged the incubator.  Disappointed, after 2.5 weeks, that we would have to start over.

And Prospector took the eggs outside to crack open, to see at what point each embryo was at, to see where they had failed.

And freaked out a little when the third egg he opened had a chick in it, that was now dying in the bowl.

We brought the rest in, and re-candled.  On most of the eggs, we could see that there was clearly nothing in them.  But seven of them we couldn't see into at all.  So we re-set those seven.

Then yesterday, Cuppa & I had a Dr. appointment.  Grandma came to stay with Buddy.  And while Grandma & Buddy were playing, they could hear a cheeping sound.... and wondered, WHAT on EARTH is that.

They found the source of the noise:

Holy Smokes!!!  I got one!!

Grandma checked the instructions to see what she was supposed to do, which was nothing, which is what she did.  The chicks are supposed to be left in the incubator for a day to dry, and you can't open it until everything is hatched.

By the time Prospector got home, we had two Silver Pencil Wyandotts, and one Buff Orpington.

By morning, we had three of each.

So of those seven eggs that we put back, six of them hatched:

Six more Babies!!

Just, not the human kind:

Six New Babies!

Quick Brooder Set up

Three Silver Pencil Wyandott's, eggs collected from the coop outside, and three Buff Orpington's, purchased from a breeder.

Our eggs

Some of our first on the left, store bought on the right

Chanty (Brown), Americauna (green)

Found this on my camera the other day, I think Prospector took these!

Chanty, Americauna, and the ISA,  RIA,  BSL

An update on eggs...

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

When we walked through the door the other night, Chuck says "Guess what!!  We got SEVEN eggs today!!"

Oh My.

If that keeps up, we will have 49 a week.  We normally eat 18.

We have 11 hens, so when they all start laying, that will be 11 eggs daily, 77 weekly... right now, we are getting too many to eat them all, but not quite enough to hang our shingle out & start selling.

hm.

HOWEVER, we have a neighbour who comes & plows the driveway (200 feet) after every snowfall.  Normally, we pay him here & there, but there's really no formal arrangement... sometimes, $20, sometimes, a bottle of rum...... His wife is very excited about the chickens, and told us to let her know as soon as we started getting enough eggs.

So we took a dozen down to them the other night.  Will trade eggs for snowplowing.  Sounds like a deal to me.

Last night, Chuck said that one had broken in her pocket on the way from the coops to the house.  Maybe not the best way to carry them?  And Buddy dropped one on the floor, taking it from Chuck at the door to the fridge the other day.  But now, he knows why we keep telling him to be careful with them!

Also, I have found eggs on the bathroom counter, ("Does anyone know why there are eggs on the bathroom counter?"  "They were in my pocket!" "How long have they been here?"  "Only a few minutes!!"), and I think Chuck said she accidentally took one to school the other day.  We have a basket...we just don't have it out yet, 'cause, at first it was only an egg or two.  Now... there are more.  I think we should find the basket & start sending it out to the coops for collecting!!

The plus side of having one of the hens living in the basement.... you know exactly when she lays her daily egg.  The down side?  You know exactly when she lays her egg.  The other night Chuck had a friend sleep over, and the hen laid her egg at 6:30 in the morning.  Her friend woke her up...."Chuck!!  Is this normal!!"

The basement hen was laying in the evening, then she took a day off, and started in the morning.. now she lays a little later each day, and will probably continue to do so until they are in the evening again, she'll take a day off, and start over.

365 - Week One

Jan 2 - Playing 'Thomases'

Jan 3 - Chuck made cupcakes for dessert

Jan 4 - Chick-de-Ville on the left, Taj-Ma-Chicken on the right

Jan 5 - A little late taking our Chistmas shots this year.  I think this one should TOTALLY grace our cards next year!

Jan 6 - I'm just LOOKING at him mom

Jan 7 - New eyewear

An update on chickens

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

So, our current flock stands at:

Chick-De-Ville (Coop one, or the first one we built)
4 Silver Pencil Wyandott Hens
2 Silver Pencil Wyandott Roosters

Taj-Ma-Chicken (Coop Two, the second one built)
3 Chanty Hens
1 Chanty Rooster
1 ISA Brown Hen (de-beaked & de-clawed)
1 Rhode Island Red Hen (de-beaked & de-clawed)
1 Black Sexlink Hen (de-beaked & de-clawed)

Basement (Just picture the looks you get when you say you have chickens in the house)
1 Chanty Rooster
1 Americauna Hen

15 total (well, 14.5, depending on whether the basement roo pulls through or not).

The Chanty's & SPW's each lay a light brown egg, while the ISA Brown, Rhode Island Red, and Black Sexlink lay dark brown eggs.  When it comes time to breed, we can easily tell the Chanty eggs from the others, and incubate them only.  So the three de-beaked de-clawed hens are eating only, not breeding.

By having the SPW's in one coop, and the Chanty's with only the Chanty rooster in the other, we can be sure that we won't have cross bred chicks.  This sounds silly, but the breeds we have are somehat rare, and therefor, the chicks sell for much more than mutt chicks would.

When the Americauna Hen comes out of the basement, she can go with either coop, since she dosen't have a rooster anymore.  Sicne both the SPW's & Chanty's lay a light brown egg, we may try for some mutt chicks from her, for ourselves, and see what colour egg they lay.  The cross may be light enough that the colour still comes through.

An update on Incubating

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

We decided not to worry about incubating the Americauna's eggs after a few days, for a few reasons.

We had originally purchased four Americauna chicks.  Of the four, one died in the first week, one had a cross bill, and died in the first month, and the other two grew to maturity.

The decision to incubate was more an emotional one than anything.  We were sick at the thought of how we lost that rooster.  And, the Americauna's really stuck together... the fact that we had left the female to be alone bothered us too.

After  a few days, a 50% survival rate did not seem particularly good to us. We also are not sure that we have true Americauna's, or 'mutt' Americauna's, which are commonly referred to as "Easter Eggers."  The eggs that they lay are greenish, but more 'olive' than green.  True Americauna's will lay blue, green, or pink eggs.

Also, it's really the wrong time of year for raising chicks.  There is a reason why, in nature, the chicks are born in the spring.

So we have not invested in an incubator yet, but are looking.  The type of incubator that Prospector would like to buy is a Brinsea.  Brinsea incubator's are approved south of the border, but not up here.  Which means that we need to watch craigslist / kijiji etc. for one.  Also, Prospector likes to build stuff.  So far, he's pulled apart a toaster, an old computer fan, and is looking longingly at my new yogurt maker, to see if he can turn the parts into an incubator.  Also, the old fish tank in the basement, including the heater for it, and Chuck's old easy bake oven.  None of the electronics in the house are safe right now.

We had ordered an incubator, for $80, but then discovered that that model was discontinued.  The sales rep phoned to advise of this, and said the next similar one was the "Picture Window Hova-bator Incubator."  Try saying that three times fast.  Try writting that down after only hearing it once.  Or, you can feel like a jerk & ask the poor sales rep to repeat herself five times, trying to figure out what the heck she's talking about!

Coming back together....

Written by Prospector on Jan 2, 2011

Part One
Part Two


So things are finally clicking in the way they were supposed to in the first place.

Right now we are harvesting about 6 eggs daily, with only some of the girls on-line. Production should pick up as the days get longer. Right now we are getting:

1-2 eggs per day from the 4 Wyandot hens
1 egg/day from the 3 Chanty hens
1 egg/day from the 1 ISA Brown
1 egg/day from the 1 Rhode Island Red
2/3 egg/day from the 1 Black Sex link
1 egg/day from the 1 Americauna

Over the Christmas break this has been just right for eating, but we enjoy bacon and eggs and french toast, and have time to cook when we aren;t working. Once we go back to work it will be a little different I am sure. We were buying 18 eggs/week before the girls started laying.

We have been looking for a reasonably priced incubator for a while now, but it seems more and more unlikely that we will find one as time goes on. I am considering converting a household Yogurt maker into a 'bator, but have to figure out some technicalities o it before I immerse myself in the project.

If we can hatch out some chicks, things will really be going well.

A Study in Post-Traumatic Stress in Poultry.

Written by Prospector on Dec 22, 2010

Part One

We are now over a week past the chicken funerals, and things have gotten interesting again.

1. The Americauna - The Americauna is grieving the loss of her boyfriend. We put her in with the Chanty Roo that survived the dog attack and she isn't pecking or hurting him, which is good, and she is bonding to him, which is probably bad, but at least she has a BFF again.

2. The Chanty Roo - OK this guy is a survivor and a champ, but I don't know how long to hold out for him. Poor guy is putting out new feathers through his skin and is bumpy all over. He can't walk well and he has a wing that is sitting funny. He is bright and attentive and is eating and drinking though. If his wing and leg heal, I believe he could be incorporated with teh flock again, but if they don't he won't last a day in mixed company. I don't know whether to dispatch him to a happier place or hold out for a recovery.

3. The 3 Chanty hens who weren't hurt - so the three hens who sat up on their roost and didn't get in the path of Bernie have now adopted the Wyandot Roosters as their boyfriends and have started laying again. Dammit. I mean good about the eggs, dammit about the mixed genetics.

4. The Wandot hens - no eggs since they arrived, but they sure eat a lot.

5. New arrivals - An older guy in town was moving and needed to get rid of a trio of hens. So we now have 3 hens that totally don't fit into our program but lay like clockwork daily. Nice big dark shelled eggs too. So we now have a Black Sex link, an ISA Brown, and a Rhode Island Red. Right now these are our most productive hens.

6. New arrival on Order - While cruising Craigslist the other day I came across someone with a Chanty Roo to be rehomed - Yippee! for $10 I can replace the Roo suffering in the basement, or if he survives, I can have two separate breeding roos. Just one problem - the Chanty hens are all in love with the Wyandots now, and the Americauna hen is dating the sickly Chanty Roo. The new Roo will end up being put in with the New trio of girls and in the end I will have 3 or 4 separate lines of Mutt chickens and no true breeding lines to show and sell. The New Roo arrives on Boxing day.

Putting the fox in the henhouse....

on December 13, we lost a hen & a rooster, and have an injured rooster in the basement, due to our own stupidity.  I couldn't write about it before (still can't, really), but if I'm going to document our chicken adventures, I'd better document the good with the bad.  Here is what happened, as told by Prospector:
(not for the faint of heart)

The trouble with raising an animal that is at the bottom of the food chain, and another animal that is at the top of the food chain is that when one sees the other all they think is "Dinner"

We just lost one of our breeding roosters and one of our layers to the dog. A second Roo is on life support in the basement. The horrible wind and blowing snow this week hasn't helped much.

While we are out during the day, we have been using the chicken run as a kennel for the dog, leaving all the chickens sealed inside their coop. Each morning before leaving for school, Chuck closes the birds in and sets the dog out, then when she gets home, Chuck lets the dog out, gathers eggs, and opens the coop. This allows the girls to wander in their run until I get home from work, by which time they have usually all gone inside to rest under the heat lamp.

On Monday, the door between the coop and run was left open when the dog was set out. Between the time Chuck got on the bus and the time she got home, one bird was killed and eaten, and the roo defending her was defeathered (fighting to defend the girls I suppose) and froze out in the snow. The second roo was also defeathered and I suppose left to freeze outside, but by the time I got home he was shivering on the floor of the coop, his feet frozen in clods of snow, unable to move from the knees down. He has no feathers on his rump or neck, and open sores all over his body where the dog ripped away feathers.

The rooster that died was the mate for the Americauna hen. We are hoping that the eggs she is laying are fertile for the next few days and that we can hatch some out to get a new generation.

The other rooster is on life support in the basement. I brought him in and slowly thawed his legs by the fire using a combination of my own body heat, cool water, and the glow of the fire until he could bend his legs again. I have never seen him so docile before. After thawing him out, I moved him to the dog crate in the basement with a heat lamp over him, and a blanket around the cage.

He has sugar water and some soft food. He smells awful.

At first all he would do was drink - no eating. Yesterday he started to eat, and was "talking". We brought in the Americauna hen, and put a divider up between them in the dog crate. The two of them are keeping each other company, and we are able to harvest her eggs without worry of them freezing out in the coop. Having company seems to have raised the rooster's spirits. This morning (Dec 17) he crowed for the first time since being thawed out.

His feathers are returning to white after having been bloodstained in the attack. At first we couldn't tell which was the Americauna and which was the Chanty. I am hoping his lost tail feathers and the feathers on his neck grow back quickly. We are told the Americauna's eggs will be viable for hatching for the next 10 days or so. Since we don't have an incubator, I need to build one. I think construction will start tonight.

This is disheartening. I am full of woulda-shoulda's right now. As a result, we have combined all of our flock (3 breeds) into one coop and put the dog in the other one. This may lead to cross-bred birds over the next few weeks. We will have to re-separate the breeds as spring comes on and we go into active hatching mode.

To think I was so sure about predator-proofing the coops and then put the dog in to do the damage turns my stomache. What a waste of a good rooster. What a waste of a good hen. Its one thing to kill for food, its another to let something freeze to death in the snow. I hope we get at least a few chicks out of it. Let the incubator building begin...

Seven Little Eggs......

The photos that go with this post

Most Families....

Decorate their yards with Santa's & snowmen & Nativity scenes at this time of year.......

Not us.

(Yes, that's a real chicken in my house.  Again)