Hatching a Goose

A little over a month ago, I got a phone call from a friend. She was really, really excited because she'd gotten a line on some really exotic eggs, and wanted to hatch them. She asked if I would be willing to hatch some, since I am really good at incubating, and her incubator wouldn't have room for all.  I said sure, I'll take 7.  I thought it was some exotic breed of chicken.

goose egg on right, chicken eggs on left

She arrived at my house a couple hours later with a big box. Inside the box were what looked like dinosaur eggs. They were ENORMOUS. It turns out they were Sebastopol Goose eggs. After googling "Sebastopol Goose", I was INCREDIBLY excited to hatch. However, I quickly realized my little brinsea could not hold 7 goose eggs.

doesn't fit

I'd been given a styrofoam "Farm Innovators" that was forced air, and I was assured it was wonderful. I took 6 eggs and started incubating.












At day 7, I saw this beautiful egg.  The rest were clear. I was really, really devastated. I normally have wonderful hatch rates. I do know that the people who sold my friend the eggs didn't know how to treat them. They'd been left outside for a while, and when they DID find them, they stuck them in fridge. Neither of which is how I'd prefer a hatching egg be treated. Even worse, my friend was hatching 24 and not a single one of hers developed.

Goose eggs take 28 days to hatch.  Life has been busy, and I had a couple of school hatches going on, so I was somewhat distracted, even though I turned the goose egg a few times a day.

Egg was supposed to hatch on Tuesday, April 29. I candled it then, and it was still alive and wiggling, but not looking ready to hatch. By this time, my Brinsea had been freed up, so I moved it over to that.  The egg was at the school. Friday came, and NOTHING. I didn't want to leave it at school over the weekend, so I decided to take it home. As I checked it before I left, I heard it cheep! I could also feel the goose moving from within the egg. From this, I knew that it had internally pipped. I'd heard that oftentimes, geese need help pipping because their shells are sooooo thick and hard. Do I help or no? Decisions, decisions.

I fretted all day Friday, and had strange, disturbing dreams that night. Saturday, I was going to be gone all day.  My wonderful husband, who tolerates my chicken habit really well, texted me the following picture Saturday.

Now, I had a whole new thing to fret about. Do I help or no? Experts told me not to worry until Monday, so I resolved not to interfere until Monday.

Saturday night, the pip looked exactly the same. I went to bed late, figuring nothing would change by morning.

I was woken up bright and early Sunday by excited children, telling me the goose was about to hatch! I turned on the webcam, and the goose hatched within 20 minutes. I was amazed at how HUGE the chick was. I was also blown away at how much I loved this chick.

Confession: I have never been crazy about geese. I think they are mean. I don't think they look as evil as, say, emus, but I've never been a big fan. But, within 5 minutes of meeting this gosling, I was mentally thinking of adding a pond to my yard and keeping it, even though I'd promised to give it back to my friend.

Not only was the little gosling adorable, but it actually likes people. I was trying to take a picture of it, and it would waddle over to me as fast as it's legs could carry it, wanting me to hold it.

I've since (kind of) come to my senses. I will give it back to my friend because I am an honest and ethical person. It's staying at the elementary school this week, and then will go home this weekend. It's been hanging out with some french black copper marans chicks. At first, they weren't sure what to make of it, but they've come around.

The goose answers to several names, including: Goostav, Gus (pronounced "goose"), Ryan, Princess, and Yellow.

Catching Up

Obviously, I am the worst chicken blogger EVER. I will try to do a quick rundown on how things have been going with my chickens.

At this moment, I have a total of 24 chickens. 23 hens and one rooster. Sadly, I lost my polish rooster, as well as my Legbar rooster. Houdini, the French Black Copper Marans is still alive and kicking and king of the castle. He is truly about the best rooster a girl could ask for.

We had a scary incident in which I lost Indy, the Cream Legbar, and nearly lost Shirley (the mix) and Carrie (the Speckled Sussex). They got into some moldy food and got botulism. They were unable to walk for a good week. I put them in the time out coop, and made sure they could reach food and water, while still laying on their sides. Indy died, but the other two eventually recovered and are perfectly healthy.

In the late summer, Shirley went broody, and I let her hatch a batch of fbcm babies. I sold them when they were a couple months old to an old friend of mine. The lady who bought Sue, the FBCM rooster from me, ended up having me hatch a batch for her as well.

Right around New Years, one of my friends from high school was posting on facebook. They had a Barred Rock chicken adopt them. Nobody knew where it came from. He doesn't keep chickens, so he wasn't set up to deal with it. His daughter fell in love, and named it Phil. I agreed to take Phil in. Turns out, Phil is a young pullet. I'm pretty sure she began laying a couple weeks ago.

Here is Phil just after she got out of quarantine, next to Godzilla, the RIR.

Phil still doesn't really perch on the perch unless I stick her up there.

Feeling Frizzled!

One of my good friends is having some health problems, and decided to get rid of her flock. She knew I'd been coveting some of her birds, so I got the opportunity to acquire some gorgeous new girls.  I am so excited.

First off, I got a bantam frizzle. I don't know if I posted or not, but I got her twin sister a few months ago. So when she came available, I was anxious to get her. Lady Diana (my frizzle) hadn't started laying yet, but her sister not only started laying, but went broody and hatched 3 chicks. Best of all, within a couple days of the new arrival (who I think I'll call Lady Sarah), Lady Diana started laying! I guess the sisterly pressure got to her.

Next, I got a leghorn/Easter Egger cross. I haven't named her yet, but she has given me a couple blue eggs already, and I just love her.

Lastly, I got an Ameracauna Frizzle. She's been quite shy, and hasn't quite integrated into the flock yet. She spends a lot of time in the henhouse. But, I think she'll eventually fit in and be just fine. 

I hatched 4 eggs for the preschool hatch. We got two legbar/FBCM mixes (both boys), a polish/hamburg mix, and a pure blue laced red wyandotte. I was tempted to keep the latter two, just to see how they turned out, but ended up deciding not to.  I have 7 eggs going into lockdown tomorrow morning for the 1st grade hatch. As of Friday, all of them were great. 5 are pure legbar, 1 is a FBCM and one is an olive egger/legbar cross. I'm going to try and have the webcam up for their hatch.

New additions to the flock

There's been some changes to my flock. First, I had to get rid of my cockerel that I hatched over Labor Day. He was starting to mate with the hens, and that's just too many boys for my girls.  I had someone come to get him who intended to eat him. I'm ok with that. If I were less squeamish, I would've processed him myself. That would I'd know for sure that his end was humane. This lady seemed nice enough, and seemed to be a good person.  Because she seemed decent, I gave her my two sexlinked cockerels from my January hatch.  Down THREE boys! I've had someone offer to teach me how to process chickens, so I think I'll take them up on it in the near future.

Then, a couple days later, I got a panicked facebook message from an old friend from junior high. She had a flock of 9 chickens. She doesn't have an enclosed coop- she lets them wander about her back yard. Her yard is mostly fenced, with a small section between the house and side fence being left open. A day earlier, animal control parked in front of her house, WALKED INTO HER BACK YARD and confiscated two of her chickens. Then they cited her with having two "livestock" animals at large, which includes a fine of $70 per animal. Her husband is an attorney, and talked them down to $15/animal, which I still think is outrageous. They are fighting their city on it. However, legal limit for her is 7 chickens, so two had to go. She asked if I'd take them. Take already laying hens? OK!!!!!!

So, I am the proud new owner of a silver penciled hamburg named Salt.


















I also have an Easter Egger, though I can't remember what they named her.







A couple months ago, I decided I wanted to replace Jones, my white legbar. I wanted to get a legbar rooster that was more traditional looking.  This week, my friend brought one of her surplus ones for me. She warned me that I had to pick it up that day because she's not allowed roosters at her home, and he had to go before he started crowing and the neighbors caught wind. So, I headed down to Bountiful to get him.  While transferring him from her pet carrier to my rubbermaid tote, he made a break for it and started running. He is not a tame rooster, and has had very little human interaction. She keeps her birds at a recreational property, so they don't see people much. He'd already had a very trying day, and was really starting to hate people.  It took about 15 minutes of running all over the place, up and down busy-ish roads before I finally got him. I'm sure it was a hilarious spectacle to the casual observer.  He's really a handsome boy though. I have named him "Bolt" after Husein Bolt, the world's fastest runner, and the fact that he bolted away from me.

Tomorrow,  Jones will be getting a new home. I talked with a guy named Jack who has 200 hens and looking to start breeding. I think he'll be a very happy rooster.

Miracle Baby

My chicken keeping has become contagious, and several of my friends started keeping chickens after hearing about how much fun I've had.  One of those friends is C.  She's called me with her chicken keeping questions, which are primarily really great questions, with a couple of hilarious ones (Do chickens have periods?)

Anyway, a few weeks ago, C called to say that one of her hens had gone broody, and wondered what to do. I asked her if she wanted to break the hen of her broodiness, or give her eggs to hatch. She opted for fertile eggs, so I gave her 7. Unfortunately, 3 of them ended up getting trampled and cracked by the other hens. The chicken was brooding in the most popular lay box, so it got a lot of traffic, and C would have to get eggs out of that box every day.

One egg didn't develop, but we got to day 19 and had three wiggling chicks inside. I recommended C get a separate place for the broody to be with her babies so that the babies wouldn't get hurt by the other chickens. So on day 19, we set up a second, much smaller coop. While we were doing that, one of her hens kind of shoved the broody out of the way and laid a MONSTER egg onto the nest. Seriously, I'll bet that egg is a triple yolker. It was ENORMOUS. Unfortunately, it landed right on one of the eggs. We peek in there, and that egg was just shattered. I picked it up to see if the membrane was intact, and I found a tiny hole in that, and a drop of blood oozed out.  I just knew it was a goner. And so close to hatching, too.

C looked ready to cry. We took it inside to open it up and see what it could have been.  C peeled the first tiny bit of shell off the top, and we saw the chick moving under the membrane!  We realized it was still alive. So, I ran home and got my incubator.  I put it in the incubator, and cranked the humidity up as high as I could, given that the membrane was showing on a significant part of the egg, and "shrink wrapping" was a huge risk.

We could actually see the chick wiggling around, so it instantly became the most interesting egg in lockdown that I've ever seen. I honestly felt like it only had about 10% chance of survival, but we decided to try.

Here's a video that C took of the chick a couple hours later.

Late Saturday night, about 40 hours after it had been smashed, C excitedly calls me to report that the chick had hatched!  I rushed over there to find a healthy chick. We decided to check the eggs still under the broody and found one more hatched chick, and a big pip in the other.  By Sunday morning, all three were hatched. She put the NICU baby out with the others, and the mama hen accepted her right into the nest.

Here's a quick video showing all three chicks with their mama.

A New Sexlink?

I am still not completely sure, but I think that my babies are a new (ish) kind of sexlink. I'm sure I'm not the first person to do this, but I'm the first I've heard of, so it's very exciting to me.  Some of the chicken experts have said that it's entirely probably because a Cream Legbar has barring in its' genes, which is one of the basis for sex linked chicks. I'm wondering if that, coupled with the autosexing characteristics of the legbar also contribute.


My chicks are all 5 weeks old now. The difference between the two that I pegged as boys and the ones I thought were girls is startling. 5 of the chicks look exactly alike. Then two of the chicks look exactly alike. The two that had the white spots on their heads that I theorized *could* be boys are very obviously boys.

Here's two of the chicks. One of the "girls" and one of the boys.



So, if this theory pans out, then I can make sex linked Olive Eggers. That would be so unbelievably cool!

Bull in a China Shop

I'm sure you've heard the term "bull in a china shop" to refer to a very clumsy person. Mythbusters even tried setting up a whole bull in a china shop scenario and found that cows are actually quite graceful, and very few pieces of glasswear got broken.

I'm thinking they must've had an unusually graceful bull.  Or maybe steers (boy cows who will never be able to have babies) are more clumsy?

Whatever it is, I am tempted to say like a steer in a chicken coop.


Last week, I was going out to give my chickens their food and water. CG (cow guy who rents the pasture next door and looks after my two cows) was out there and he stopped me.  Told me they'd had a bit of an adventure. They'd been unloading some new steers, and one of them panicked and jumped the 4' chainlink fence. Unfortunately, the other side of my fence was the chicken yard. He completely shredded my poultry netting, and he managed to disconnect the chain link to the top rail for a section of fence. They couldn't get the door to the run open enough to get him out (we have about 2' of snow on the ground right now), so CG ended up cutting a 6' long hole in my chicken wire to get the cow out. My chicken run was pretty trashed, and most of the repairs can't be done until spring.

CG was very apologetic, and offered to pay for any repairs. The majority of it is labor, and it's labor that would be tough to do with all of the snow. We put up a few panels of dog kennel fencing to temporarily fix it, and it'll hold til spring.










Here's the part of the run that is unusable until I fix the poultry netting and the chain link.








I think the chickens were thrilled to get out- I'd locked them inside for a couple of days until we got things repaired and safe. There were only 3 eggs when they were locked inside. Granted, I was only getting 0-2 a day ANYWAY.

My poor speckled sussex is all verklempt because she prefers to lay in the other hen house, but she can't get to it now.

In happy news, I've gotten two olive eggs and two blue eggs in the last few days. I hadn't gotten the olives since November, and I think these blue eggs were from my lavender ameraucana, who also hasn't laid since November.

Hatch Results

I feel bad that I never updated with how the hatch turned out. About 9 days in, the brown egg quit.

All of the other eggs developed beautifully. Right around lockdown, I got very sick with a nasty cold. Lost my voice. Then, I developed an ear infection and my ear drug ended up bursting. I was too sick to really enjoy the hatch, which was a real disappointment. I did do the hatch cam though, so other people did.

This hatch was really, really unusual for me. My eggs always hatch on day 21, with a few going into day 22. This time was different though.

I set the eggs around 8pm on a Friday. 19 days later, on a Thursday morning, my son wakes me up to tell me that he hears chirping. I have to admit I thought he was nuts, but I went over to the incubator to double check. Sure enough, eggs 1, 2 and 3 had all pipped. I knew I had to get the webcam set up, so I slowly got everything hooked up (remember I was really quite ill). While doing that, egg #5 (the one that had sat in the fridge for 8-10 days prior to being set) pipped as well.

An hour later, another one pipped. The cracked egg and the late egg were the only ones not pipped.

I had to drag myself to a last minute home inspection for a house that my clients were closing on the next day, so around 4pm, I left for that. By 4:30, the first egg had hatched.  The second egg hatched within an hour of that.

By 6:30pm, four of the eggs had hatched, and the remaining three were all pipped, even my "crack baby". The remaining three were the fridge egg, the cracked egg, and the late egg.

I went to bed early, but was told one of the eggs hatched just after midnight. At 2:30am, I went to check on the incubator and found that both crack baby and fridge egg had hatched.  So, I had all of those guys hatch by 20.5 days. AMAZING.

Late baby pipped two full days before day 21 even started. Friday afternoon, the last baby hatched out.

Everyone was perfectly healthy. They were all fathered by the french black copper marans. Two of the babies had a white spot on the head, which was one of the signs of being a male by the legbar standards.

At this point, they're about 2.5 weeks old, and the ones I thought may be boys definitely have larger combs than everyone else.

I never did get around to taking pictures of the chicks. I was simply too sick.  I am feeling much better now though.

Candling at 90 Hours In

overcrowded

I have a confession.  Saturday morning, when my eggs were about 12 hours into incubation, I discovered that my legbar had just laid another egg. Even though my Brinsea Mini Advance has a capacity of 7 eggs (and I was at capacity), I stuck it in there. I wanted to hedge my bets- Crack Baby's shell does actually have a crack in it, and the fridge egg had been sitting in my refrigerator for at least a week, probably 8-9 days. So, I had serious doubts as to their viability. However, I didn't have the heart to take them out, just in case life had begun.  So, I just crammed the 8th egg in there and hoped for the best.

cracked egg at 90 hours incubation

This morning, when they'd been in there at 90 hours and 72 hours, I candled. I could see heartbeats in ALL SEVEN of the legbar eggs!!  My brown egg I'm not seeing as easily, but I'm fairly confident I'm seeing the tell tale veins.  It's a good news/bad news thing. I have to admit that I was kind of hoping for a quitter so that all the eggs would be in the turner properly so I could quit worrying, but on the other hand, I'm thrilled that my fertility rate is that high.

I'll keep candling daily, I think, and if/when something quits, everything will line up nicely.  I have to admit that I'm kind of hoping all eight hatch though.





Here's a bottom view of the cracked egg. The crack is at the bottom (fat part) of the egg. It's not too bad of a crack, but because of the location, I was worried about sealing it up with wax, or nail polish, or elmer's glue, which is the normal fix when an egg cracks. Generally speaking, it's not a great idea to set cracked eggs. Those fixes are intended for candling/hen mishaps that happen during incubation.  You can see the weakened spots because the light goes through the egg very easily.

As a side note, if you are wondering how I candle, I have a tutorial on how it works here.  Photographs were taken with my iPhone 4.

Setting Legbar Eggs

I have finally given in to the compulsion I've been having ever since Indy, my Cream Legbar, started laying eggs. I've been dying to hatch some legbars of my own. 

So, I've been collecting her eggs for a week. As of today, I have 6 (actually, one of those six is a couple days older and has been in the fridge, so who knows how well it will do) legbar eggs to hatch. There's a 7th egg in there. I suspect it's from my speckled sussex, but I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if they're going to be pure legbar or not. I have three roosters- a legbar, a black copper marans, and a polish. I'm not sure that the polish is getting any action, and I *believe* the legbar is the dominant roo, but I suspect he and the marans have been fighting a bit.

I collected eggs for a friend online- a month ago, he'd asked for fertile eggs for his son's science project. Back in November, I was getting 7-8 eggs a day, so I told him getting two dozen on Dec. 14 wouldn't be a problem at all. Heh.  I also said that most of my eggs are pretty easy to tell apart.

Well, all of my chickens with the distinctive eggs stopped laying just before I started collecting. Only Indy, my legbar, was laying colorful eggs. I was getting 2-3 light brown eggs a day, but the only one I was sure on was the speckled sussex. I don't know who the other layers were. -sigh- I tried to watch as carefully as possible, but there were some I just wasn't sure of.

We got to the day before delivery, and I was about 11 eggs short of my promised 24. I got a dozen from my next door neighbor, and those were better in a way because we knew definitely that they were all half blue laced red wyandotte, because her only rooster is one that I gave her from an earlier hatch this year.

His eggs are about 14 days in, and he's had to throw out about 4-5 (all from my neighbor's eggs). Considering they were left in the henhouse overnight, I wonder if they got too cold. I'm excited to see what pops out of his hatch.

Meanwhile, I'm sad that I'm getting no black copper marans eggs, no wellsummer(ish) eggs, no olive eggs, and no polish eggs.

Wow Wow Wubzy

Wow Wow Wubzy is what my kids named our white silkie chick. It's a children's television show character.

I moved the two chicks outside- they're around 8 weeks old now, and I have a 120 watt light out there that keeps things fairly toasty.  Things had been going well  until this morning.

This morning I found the little silkie dead, and the frizzle all upset. I couldn't find any wounds on her, and she seemed perfectly healthy when I took this picture yesterday. The temperature OUTSIDE didn't even get below 40, and in the henhouse, with 16 other chickens and a warm light, I'm sure it was plenty warm. I'm not sure what happened.

Z, my five year old, was with me when I made the discovery, and he was pretty sad. It's the second chicken he's named, and the first was Hulksmash. So, his track record isn't so great.

S, my seven year old, is going to be so upset when she realizes. The friend who sold them to me says she has more, so I'm trying to figure out a way to go get another while I'm in Salt Lake tomorrow without her realizing it (she'll be with me). I think I may be able to work it out. Wish me luck that I can get a new Wow Wow Wubzy with only Z and my husband the wiser.

My eggs today

My friend Kris gave me this lovely metal basket that I've been using as my egg collecting basket.

I thought that I'd post the eggs that I collected today because I thought it'd be fun.

I'm thinking that my polish chicken has started to lay because I'm getting an almost white egg now, and she's the only one who would lay that color. But, she took today off (at least, hasn't laid as of 1:30pm) so her egg isn't in here.  Maybe I should do this more often.

I get these extra large sized light brown eggs nearly every day. Every time, they're over 60 grams. I think they are from either my golden laced wyandotte or the rhode island red.

Today I got a new egg- I found that medium brown, speckled egg in the small henhouse. I was confused, because it is on the light side for my bcm, but way darker than my other brown eggs. Plus, I'd seen the bcm in the other hen house in the nest box, so I didn't know why I'd find her egg way over here.  When I got to the other nest box, I found the obvious bcm egg where I'd seen her earlier. I suspect that pretty, speckled egg comes courtesy of Shirley. Yay!

Rooster Swap

Warren, the Black Copper Marans cockerel

I've been a little disappointed with the way Warren, my Black Copper Marans has turned out. Not too much of a tail, and there's white in it, which is very bad for a BCM. He also is the wrong color- instead of an orange-y copper color, he's been a dark mahogany. Which, I have to admit, is a bit fun and unusual, but definitely not to breed standard. My other concern is that he is very closely related to my BCM hen, who is quite gorgeous. As far as breeding goes though, it isn't good to breed too closely together.

What sealed the deal was when I was out harvesting potatoes a couple weeks ago, Warren attacked my 5 year old with no provocation. In fact, Z actually had his back to the rooster and he flew at him, knocking him down and scratching him with his spurs.

I'm willing to put up with a little bit of mean for a gorgeous rooster, but if you're homely, you HAVE to be nice to survive at my house.

So, I've known for a while that Warren was on his way out, but hadn't really had time to do anything about it.

Well, about a week ago, my chicken friend Diana posted that a mysterious new rooster magically appeared in her back yard. She went to close in her birds for the night, and there in the middle of everyone was a young black copper marans cockerel. We've joked in our group about "roostering" someone- dropping a rooster into a friend's yard while everyone is asleep. And, since this sort of practical joke is right up my alley, I think she suspected me. I promised I was innocent, but that I would be interested in trading roosters. Her friend, a vet, is wanting to investigate de-crowing a rooster, but since the procedure is a bit tricky, with a high mortality rate, she didn't want to experiment with an expensive rooster.

Yesterday, I dropped Warren off. I'm not sure if he'll have the de-crowing procedure done on him, or if she's going to have him for dinner, but really study his vocal cords  before she eats him, but I think it's an intriguing idea. I think ultimately, if decrowing roosters could become more feasible, it would save a lot of roosters lives.

I can't remember what Diana named this boy, but given his magical appearance, I wanted to name him after a magician, so I went for the most legendary musician of all time.

Houdini, black copper marans cockerl

Introducing Houdini.

I put him in the coop last night after everyone was down for the night. This morning, I went to check on him, and found him nestled in a nest box with my bcm, who was trying to lay, and looking very annoyed with him for intruding on her space. So far, he seems to be getting along well with everyone.

Poor Chickensitters

I wonder why it is that all unusual stuff happens when I go out of town. I swear I'm not gone that often, but when I am, that's when the weird happens.

I was planning to go to Las Vegas this past weekend. I toyed with the idea of not having someone collect eggs at all because I didn't want to inconvenience anyone. A girlfriend called the day before I left and wanted  to buy eggs. I told her that if she came and collected while I was gone, she could keep anything she collected for free.

fart egg on top

She came over the day before I left so I could show her what to do. I noticed my older lavender ameraucana in the nest box. This has been happening more and more, and I'd been concerned- I'd see her in the box, but then she'd never lay anything. I have found 4-5 "fart eggs" that I was guessing were coming from her. I've started to be concerned that she was laying internally, or that something wasn't right with her.

I warned T of my concerns, and said if something happened, I wouldn't be too surprised.










As it turns out, the chicken did pass away on Saturday. I feel bad about it. I'm wondering if maybe the chickens were possibly too closely bred? That means I lost both of them within a few months, and definitely prematurely. I'm thinking my chicken babysitter wasn't too broken up though- she told me she collected well over a dozen eggs, and she kind of wants chickens now.

On a happier note, my speckled sussex has begun laying. I think she actually started a couple weeks ago.  There's another egg that's started appearing that's a very, very pale cream color. Definitely not white, but very light. Maybe it belongs to the coronation sussex? I haven't been able to catch the hen in the act.

Potato Farmers

I let all of the big kids out to free range while I harvested potatoes. They thought it was the funniest thing that I was scratching around in the dirt like them, and were constantly underfoot, especially the lavender ameraucana.

Whatcha doing, huh? Huh? Why you digging in the dirt? You want me to help? Am I in the way if I stand right here? Yes? How about now? See how helpful I'm being?

More of the not-so-helpful potato digging staff.

Thing 1 and Fonzie chilling out.

Who will lay next?!

Amongst the big kids, I have four pullets that have not started laying. Who do you think will lay next?

Carrie the Speckled Sussex

Of the group, Carrie, the speckled sussex, is the oldest. She's suddenly turned very red in the face, and I've seen her checking out the nest boxes. As of now, she is around 25ish weeks. I didn't hatch her, so I don't know for sure.

Thing 1

Next oldest is Thing 1. I didn't hatch her either, but I imagine she's very close in age to Carrie, so I'd guess 24 weeks old or so.

Shirley the adorable mutt

Next up is Shirley, the hen I saved from the eating basket. When I picked up eggs for my final school hatch, the 7th egg was a lovely blue egg, but it was kind of a strange, oblong shape. I worried that it wouldn't rotate correctly in the incubator, so I asked if I could swap it for a different egg. On the counter, she had a basket full of eggs that she'd collected for eating. I chose a pretty brown egg, and Shirley was the result. I think she may be a welsummer mix, or possibly a black sex link. Shirley is 21 weeks old.

Chloe the Coronation Sussex

Youngest of the bunch, but easily the biggest hen I own is Chloe. Cloe is the last to hatch from the batch that Shirley came from, and she was late and seemed to be struggling, so I helped her out. She bled a bit upon hatch, which made me feel awful, that I'd killed her. She also had curled toes that I had to fix. But look at her now! I am so thrilled with how beautifully she's turned out. I have no idea if she's "show quality" or not, but I sure think she's pretty.


I think my money is on either Chloe or Carrie laying first, but I think it'll be Carrie. I think that Thing 1 will be the last to lay.

Integration

After losing a couple chickens, I'd decided I wanted to keep my two flocks separate for a few months to make sure that I didn't have a huge outbreak of LL.  However, since a couple months went by with nothing, and the temperatures are starting to drop, I decided to integrate. The idea of buying two water heaters, having two supplemental lights set up, etc. etc got to buy a little overwhelming.

Jones and his fan club

I wanted the two groups to have a couple "playdates" before I took down the fence that separated the two coops. So, while I would be outside working on putting the garden to bed, I'd let everyone out so they could free range together. Everyone seemed to get along really well, so after a few days of that, I took down the fence. It seems to have gone fairly smoothly. My two roosters have been going at it a little bit, I think- both of them have slightly scabby combs, but they don't fight in front of me at all. It's kind of funny though- a couple of Jones' hens will sit there and almost groom his comb and wattles. They remind me of groupies. Jones is the white legbar rooster.

Warren the Black Copper Marans

I will admit he cuts a more dashing figure than Warren, the black copper marans. But, I suspect Warren is going to get better looking as he comes into himself. Even at his best, he's not going to be a very good example of a black copper marans- his color is too dark, more of a mahogany than an orange color. I also suspect his shape isn't great. his tail has some white, which is bad, but that could go away with his first molt.

Meanwhile, poor lonely Fonzie kept escaping from his corner of the coop so often that I finally gave up on protecting him from the rest. I think he's just so desperate to be part of the flock that he's willing to put up with their abuse. He's so small that he can escape through the chain link if needs' be. When I go out there, he comes running, and if I don't pick him up, he tries to fly up to me. Little bugger is growing on me. I can't have a FOURTH rooster, so I'm hoping he either turns mean or I'm wrong and Fonzie is actually a girl.






Everyone is still sleeping in their original quarters though- zero integration at night. Egg laying was segregated until yesterday- I found a marans egg in the other coop. Otherwise, they've kept that separate as well.

New Egg Layers!!

I am so excited!  I have three pullets and one rooster from my preschool hatch. I gave the other hen to my sister in law, and sold the other rooster.  As of this week, they are now 26 weeks old.

Two days ago, I found a lovely green egg in the run. It was the same color as my old easter egger used to lay, and the exact same shade as my front room wall. I was kind of hoping it came from the lighter lavender ameraucana in that batch because I wanted Cinderella, my olive egger, to give me a very dark egg.

Yesterday, I went out to check for eggs again. In the time out corner, where Fonzie's been living,  I found my black copper marans pullet (from that hatch). No sign of Fonzie. The black copper marans was not at all happy to be in there, and seemed trapped. Also in there was another green egg.

I lifted her out and grabbed the egg. I was a little concerned that even though she was SUPPOSED to be a bcm, maybe she was some mix. I didn't think so though. She looked like a hen on an egg laying mission.

Sure enough, a couple hours later, I found a nice marans egg out in the run. Yay!! Two out of the three are laying.

Cream legbar egg on top, Black Copper Marans pullet egg on bottom

I did some decorating of my nest boxes- added carpet and then shavings in the bottom. Then, as a temporary measure, I moved a rubbermaid tote under the boxes so they could hop up there easier. Immediately felt like an idiot because I watched Cinderella, the dark gray pullet from that hatch JUMP 6 feet into the air and land on my storage shelf at the top of the room. I helped her down, and then she hopped into one of my newly done nest boxes. All the other chickens in the hen house started singing the egg song except her.

Cinderella at the top of the chicken coop

After a few minutes, I found that same nice green egg in there.  So, I think I'll have to be working on getting another olive egger in the future. But, this is a pretty color.

Teaching Chickens to use a Nipple Watering System

When I introduced my big buckets with nipple waterers on bottom in the first place, my chickens got the hang of it after a couple days. I just had them watch while I toggled a nipple with my finger, and after a few minutes, they just picked up on it.

I lost Potsy to misunderstanding the watering system (which is odd, because she'd had it in the house and used it with no problems) and nearly lost Fonzie.

I was determined to really watch the new chicks and make sure they got the concept down.  They didn't.  It was maddening. I could tell they were thirsty. I would use my finger to make water come out of the bottle, but they didn't get it. After a day or so, they got all excited when they saw my finger, as they saw it, it was the magical water dispensing finger. Yesterday, at wits end, I ended up squeezing the water bottle. It is soft enough that it forced water to slowly drip out. They saw that, and a light bulb went on. Within a couple minutes, everyone was drinking from the nipple, and all was well.

I've heard of adult chickens continuing to have a problem, and my fix won't work if it's a 5 gallon bucket. I haven't tried this, but it makes sense. Someone suggested using grapes or cherry tomatoes, and carefully sticking them over the nipples. The chickens will nibble at their treat, and by the time the treat is gone, they'll have realized there's water coming out of that strange, silver contraption.

A funny thing happened at the feed store...

So. A funny thing happened to me at the feed store today. As we were driving there, my 7 year old asked if we could get a chick. I said, "Oh honey, they don't have chicks this time of year" ("thank goodness" under my breath).

So we get there, and the manager is telling about how a month or so ago, someone dumped a bunch of hens over the fence into their back lot overnight. George, one of the roosters, decided they were his new flock and was hanging out with them.  A couple days ago, they realized that a bunch of chicks had hatched from these rogue hens. Some customers yesterday caught all but one of the hens. They thought they'd gotten all the chicks, but it turns out there was a broody banty mama with a bunch of chicks. There's also a bunch of feral cats and kittens out there, so she was a bit worried. I offered to help an employee capture everyone. So, we get this tiny little mama captured, and her TEN chicks. As we caught them, we were talking about how we could make a safe area in the petting zoo part of the store for the mom.

We get inside, and the manager announces I'm taking them all home. Ummmm, NO!!!  Another customer was in there, and he was perfectly happy to take them all. I ended up deciding to take one home, because it's such a funny story.

This little girl (?) definitely takes after her daddy. He's a big, dark blue rooster. I think he is probably a Blue Langshan. Mom was a little bantam. I believe she may be an Old English Game Hen. Three of the chicks were yellow, the other seven looked more or less like my chick.