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.

Spring is Here!

So nice to have a full egg carton after a slow winter! Notice the top left egg from Ginger. After a bit of a Winter break in her egg laying, she popped out a mini egg. Lots of brown eggs... until FINALLY Hawk decided to lay one (white egg).

New Feathers for Minerva

After a few really cold days of being feather-less, Minerva has started growing new feathers. Her head has new little feathers and if you look really closely, you can see the tips of the feathers that have just started "feathering" on her wing, above the couple big, old feathers she has. She has been huddling in a corner of straw in the coop and so I've been letting the hens out more than usual so she can find a sunny patch to sit in. I bet she'll be even warmer tomorrow.

Yesterday, I tried holding Minerva to warm her up, but she squawked loose and felt like a porcupine! It was quite an odd feeling. Normally, the hens are so soft and fluffy.