RooPaul

We've gotten our ladies another rooster (this one will be number four), this time a "rescue" rooster that was working as a therapy chicken... until he started crowing. He's an Easter-egger who comes to us already strutting the name RooPaul (love). He's very young and not totally full-grown yet, but he's already taller than all the others, and after his mandatory quarantine he had no trouble straightening out the pecking order to his liking.

Paprika, however, did not like him... at least at first.

I think they've become more comfortable with each other, though. They've at least learned to leave each other alone anyway.

I have to say, we didn't realize how much we missed having that quintessential rooster crow as part of our home soundtrack. I'm enjoying our new chicken boy. He's still a little skeptical about me.

Welcome to the flock, Roo!

Chickens Meet Chickens

We intermingled our chickens this weekend. The littler girls spent two nights in the chicken tractor within the yard with the big girls, and yesterday I let them all out. Libby didn't care one bit, but Paprika spent about half the day chasing the flock of teenagers around the yard and picking out a feather here and there whenever she got the chance.

At night I'm still having to go out and gather the blob of babies and move them into the hen house to roost, but I think they'll get the hang of it soon enough.

So far they all seem a little suspicious of each other, but they're making it work. I feel confident it won't be long before they're one big happy family.

And now that the old chicken coop is vacated, I can't help but let my mind wander to who the next occupants could be................................ turkeys? Geese? Guineas?

Don't you think my flock could use a little more flair?

Why the Chickens Crossed the...

Remember that project we started last week? We wrapped it up today, and I can finally answer that age-old question: Why did the chickens cross the "road"? Because the peeps were moving in!

As you can see, our borrowed brooder was just plain running out of room for our growing chicks, and we really didn't have another weekend to spare before they needed a bigger place to call home. In a whirlwind week we got perches, a ramp, and our automatic door installed in the playhouse, all cracks and windows fortified with chicken wire and #8 hardware cloth, and a sturdy grid of twine woven overhead. On Sunday the big girls made their big move!

Then here and there throughout the week I got the old coop cleaned out, freshened up, and battened down so the little girls could move into the big girl coop, which we happily helped them do this afternoon.

Now the garage is quiet, peaceful, and a little less smelly, the big girls have lots of room to roam, and the peeps have their own space to stretch and grow! Tonight we'll take a walk out to our chicken yard to make sure everyone went to bed where they were supposed to go, and tomorrow I'll finally get our automatic door programmed properly for the big girls, but as far as this little project is concerned, I'm calling it a wrap!

2020 Peeps

They're getting big. We're starting to move them outside for the day whenever the weather allows, and those little feather girls are loving it! They run around like pinballs, they stretch their wings and try to fly, they eat grass and try to eat sticks and everything else they find... in short they put on quite a show (under the watchful eyes of the Chicken Friends, of course). They're right there on the boarder of being almost-too-big-to-be-inside, and we're starting to feel some pressure to get everything ready for their next phase into our flock. (We're going to make darn sure we don't repeat the mistakes of last time.)

This past weekend we moved the kid's playhouse- no longer something being used by our suddenly big Littles- in to the dog run- also something no longer being used- to make a new chicken yard. the dog run's fence is waaaay better than what's loosely wrapped around the current chicken yard, and the playhouse-turned-chicken-coop is super cute and a lot more visible from the back windows of the house, so it seems like it'll be a perfect marriage of repurposing and fortification. 

Of course we're not going to be throwing away the old coop; after the pathetic fence comes down around their run, we're planning on clearing out the brush and moving the bee hives up near the garden, repairing the doors of the coop, and making that where pullets, sick birds, and broody hens can be kept. It'll be the fortified specialty coop. 

For now, though, we're just past phase one, and while our little teen feather girls stretch their wings and soak up the sun, I'll be putting hardware cloth over the playhouse windows, building a ramp and roosting bars, and figuring out a way to keep those giant red-tailed raptors from picking off my birds once they're in their new digs.

I can't wait to have a place where they can freely roam again, y'all!

A Lesson Learned

We cleaned up the yard a bit this past weekend, and part of that process was finally moving the chicken tractor from it's fateful location where it failed our peeps (I haven't done a thing to it since that morning). When I rolled it away to be stored next to the garden, Audrey was left staring at the hole where the coyote breached the perimeter, and she decided she didn't want to see it anymore. It made her imagine her scared Blue Chick and all the feathers she found afterwards.

She decided she would fill it in and mark the spot so she could remember the peeps, but not feel sad about what happened anymore.

And so she did.

I watched her from the sidelines and stayed out of the way, and she worked at filling in that hole by herself until it was to her satisfaction. She didn't look up, she didn't ask for help or say a word about the rocky soil or the manual labor, she just kept her head down and did the work until the hole was filled and marked with some gray-blue stones... the same color as her Blue Chick's feathers.

When she was done she moved on with her day, and I think that small effort gave her a measure of peace that all my words- and the reading of this book- hadn't helped her find.

For a moment after I discovered our loss, I considered trying to hide it from my kiddos, and though I did end up telling them that morning what happened, I think the fact that we took more than a month to go out there and actually deal with the site testifies to the fact that on some level I was still trying to protect them from the reality of what happened out there. However, I have to consider that in keeping the details from them, I might have actually dragged out their pain and sense of loss (for the Chicken Friend at least), and facing it head-on and dealing with it hands-on is actually what helped the most.

I'll have to remember this lesson learned, for sure.

Teenage Peeps (Updated)

Since the beginning of the summer, we've had six little puffballs living in the garage in a "brooder" borrowed from Aunt Karen and Uncle Larry. Happy and safe, they grew and grew... and got smellier, and smellier... and smellier.

Then, over the weekend, we realized all the room in the brooder had somehow been filled with teenager chickens, and it was time for them to move out.

Now, this is the first time I've had to blend younger chicks with an established flock, and I've been reading everything I can lay my eyeballs on to make sure I don't mess things up! Right now I'm 99% sure they are not big enough to go out with the big girls in the proper chicken coop, so what to do with these big-little chicks?

Revive the chicken tractor, of course!

I added a perch at the back, a solid wood panel in the middle, and a small tile roof for shade and rain protection, then wrapped the whole thing in hardware cloth to protect them against snakes. They have now spent two nights out there and so far all is well! The major flaw right now is that something motivated enough could dig under it, but at night I push them up closer to the house with the hopes that Suka's scent might discourage things from lingering.

Phase two will be pushing the chicken tractor into the big girl chicken run so they can all start getting used to each other. But that probably won't be for another week or two I think.

For now, the Chicken Friends approve of the new Peep's new digs, and I have heard both report that the little feather girls are clearly happier out there, as they get "peep zoomies" every time they're visited by their people.

I sure am happier with them out there, too- at least now our garage doesn't smell like teenage peeps!

Post edit:
Overnight it appears a coyote found and exploited the biggest weakness of the tractor: there is nothing to stop a digging predator. There were no survivors. 

Designs are now underway for a rebuilt chicken yard with a peep pen within the fortress walls. We will rebuild... and we will try again.

A Christmas Gift in Midsummer

Late in the winter, while the trees were still bare, my chicken girls started getting a little attention... all the wrong kind of attention, actually: in a matter of about two months, we went from 9 girls to 5 due to predation. We also lost our little raven-black rooster, Edgar, to a hawk (he was the first to go). Something furry and gray then started sneaking into the coop whenever I'd forget to go out there after dark and close it up, and one by one I was feeding the local wildlife an organic chicken dinner just about every-other-week.

The rub was that I'd actually gotten a battery-powered, solar-timed automatic chicken door for Christmas, but there was a lot going on at that time and it was just hanging out on top of the fridge, waiting for it's turn on the to-do list.

This weekend, it got it's turn. After a whole new wall panel and a guillotine-style door was installed (in less than an hour!), my girl went to work with the finishing touch so the chicken girls would feel right at home with their new back door...

So now my feather girls are released at 9am and closed up safe and secure at 9pm, and as soon as we learn more about the programming we'll switch to the door opening at full daylight and closing at dusk. The only problem we have left to deal with now is where the heck they're laying their eggs out there now that they can get out first thing in the morning!

Oh, and as for our diminished flock, we've taken care of that, too...

Six new "peeps," including two Easter-eggers with fluffy cheeks! Currently residing in a brooder generously shared with us by Uncle Larry & Aunt Karen- and I'm telling you, that fence lid they added pretty much saved my chicks right after we got them. Their introduction to Suka was her looking down at them from above as she was standing on it. Audrey and Henry now know to be extra careful about closing the garage door behind them!

Edgar

Introducing Edgar, a blue-black raven of a tiny little rooster gifted to us by a friend with too many roosters and not enough space. He was the lowest guy on the totem pole, and he comes to us a bit picked at with no tail feathers, but he's as sweet as can be (he rode home on my lap). My girls don't know what to do with him yet, and are testing his resolve for sure, but even though he's only half their size he's holding his own! And I'm super excited to add a more watchful member to the flock, as I'm considering expanding their yard into an area much more open with way less cover. An extra pair of eyeballs will be excellent!

Last night I was sitting out with my girls, watching them get to know their new beau, and little ol' Edgar decided to sing them a love song:

The 'honk' at the end kills me every time!

Welcome to the fam, Edgar!