A Garden Clutch

It feels like Spring now!  While it is only February, the temps are in the mid-70s this week and four of the six hens started laying  within the past two weeks, after a 4-5 month break.  

A couple of days after Sissy started laying, it seemed she stopped for several days, which didn't seem right.  Finally, I found out why she didn't have any eggs in the nesting box.  She had a clutch of eggs in a homemade nest out in the yard!  I felt really bad collecting them all and making a "Sissy omelet" for Remi's lunch, but I got over it quickly.  After losing her clutch of eggs, Sissy started laying in the nesting box again. 

Now that Sissy, Chirp, Shasta and JimBob are laying, we have enough spare eggs for the kids to sell in order to raise money for fostering kittens this summer.  They will purchase the food/litter and supplies we need for taking care of a kitten family. 

Goodbye Rooster

It has been fun keeping a rooster with our flock of hens.  We had started looking for a new home for him and decided to keep him until he crows.  Just when I was starting to think he'd be a quiet type and maybe we could keep him, he started crowing on Saturday at 4.5 months old.  At first, it was really crackly and sounded like a car trying to start.  He's been practicing his crows in sets of 5 around 7 am the past few mornings but today he's really gotten into a groove and started crowing at 6:30 am (a set of 5) and at 7 am, 7:30 am, etc...  He's had several rounds and his voice gets louder and the crowing lasts longer.  Today he'll move to a new home-- a farm in the Cupertino foothills. 

Here is a photo of Coby holding Rooster.  I was afraid to pick him up because Rooster became a little aggressive in the past week.  But Coby could catch him!

Coby took this picture as all the chickens ran after him to the coop, expecting treats.  

They were not disappointed... Coby gave them some scratch!

Coby and I tried to put all 7 chickens on the table, but we only managed to get 4 on before they started jumping down.

Majestic Rooster!

2-ish Months Old

The chicks moved out of their little cage and into a cage 4 times the size of the original one.  At that time, they also moved out of the kitchen and into the garage because they got smelly and messy!  I didn't capture any photos during that time (!!!), but now all the chickies are in the coop and look like big girls. 

 "CHIRP" (Americauna)

 "LORA" (Buff Brahma)

"SHASTA" (Delaware)

"ROOSTER" (Male Salmon Faverolle... oops!)

 "KELLY" (Welsummer)      

 

"SISSY" (Sussex)

 "JIM BOB" (Americauna... we may not keep the name but we like the it for now)

 

 

The big shocker of the day came when the chick we thought was the Brahma turned out to be the Salmon Faverolle and the one we thought was a Salmon Faverolle looked identical to a Buff Brahma, so I guess we had the chicks confused.  Lora's name (when we thought she was the Salmon Faverolle for the past 2 months) is supposed to be a feminine version of Lorax, the cute Dr. Seuss character with a mustache.  Salmon Faverolle's have little mustaches, but since she's a Brahma, she's missing the mustache but is keeping her name.  The one we thought was the Brahma is actually a male Salmon Faverolle.  The females are salmon colored but the males have darker feathers.  You can see that Rooster has lots of dark feathers, including the typical rooster's iridescent green-black tail feathers.  Supposedly they are very sweet roosters, but we won't be able to keep him once he starts crowing.  So far he still has a baby chirp though he's the most quiet of tall the chicks.  

A lot of Rooster's behaviors are making sense now.  We thought he was less-than-intelligent but it turns out while all the other chicks learned to roost on the low and then the high bars in the coop, he was still sleeping on the floor to better protect his flock from predators.  And the reason he stays back when I'm giving the girls scratch is because he's saving the best for them.  What a gentle-roo!

We are really enjoying the chickens.  Kelly and Shasta still seem to be the most people friendly, though Sissy is also quite friendly.  Lora is the most entertaining though.  She likes to run through the coop without a plan for where she's going... just aimless. 

Update on our 2nd Chicken Flock

Chicks are such fun!  The full flock has 7 chicks.  While it looks like there are 2 kinds of chicks above (3 yellow and 4 brown), we actually got 6 different breeds.  Chicks come in only 3 colors though... brown-ish, yellow, and black.  In our last flock, he had 3 black chicks, but we don't have any this time. This flock contains 2 Americaunas, 1 Brahma, 1 Delaware, 1 Salmon Faverolle, 1 Sussex, and 1 Welsummer. 

In the photo above, all the chicks are sleeping, except one!  
 

 

Here the chicks are about a week old and are starting to explore a little bit when the cage door opens.  The first two chicks to sit on the door are consistently Kelly (brown one at the end of the flap door) and Shasta (bright yellow chick nearest to Kelly).  In our last flock, the first two to explore out of the cage also were the friendliest as hens. 

 

Pepper was supervising the chicks... or maybe he was hoping for a snack?

Actually Written Sept. 20. 2012

Today we started our second flock of chickens!  So far, we have 2 different colors of Ameraucanas (the yellow one and the middle one) and we have a Welsummer (right).  These breeds should provide us with a nice colorful basket of eggs this Spring.  Ameraucanas lay greenish/blue eggs and the Welsummer should lay dark (almost chocolate) eggs.  On Saturday we will get a few more from a different store in order to have a bigger variety of breeds.  While we loved our last flock of 2 Barred Rock, 2 Buff Orpingtons, 1 Silver Laced Wyndotte and 1 Brown Leghorn, we wanted to try completely different breeds this time. 

Flock #1 retired at 3.5 years old this past weekend.  Their laying had REALLY slowed down to the point that we got one egg every other day, if we were lucky.   

Coby and Chirp

Remi and Tweet

Our neighbor with Kelly

RIP Ginger

It is remarkable that our hens remained healthy for 3 years. But today, we said goodbye to Ginger. We don't know what caused her to be ill though she wasn't keeping up with the flock and her comb and crop turned purple. In her younger days, she was the top of the pecking order. We will miss you Ginger!

First Chicken Vet Appointment

Minerva injured her foot somehow and had been limping, so we took the sweet hen to the vet to get the foot looked at. Dr. Nakamura at Adobe Animal Hospital reported that it did not seem like an infection (not red/hot) and was most likely due to some kind of trauma. Looks to me like the coop door got caught on her foot (see the dark line on top of the middle digit?). The doctor prescribed some anti-inflammatory medicine that the kids have both been helping me administer (while I hold the hen and open her mouth). Minerva has been healing well.