Happy Harvest Blog
Foxy and Feisty
Feisty's a very pretty chicken. We had a good photo shoot before dusk: If you catch them at the right angle, which isn't hard to do, Silkie hens look like they have no eyes at all. Foxy is irritable. Her chicks are at that stage where they ignore her until they need her, don't pay attention, and want to stay up too late. I've still no idea how many days/weeks it takes for them to hit these chicken stages of development, like pants, reluctance to go to bed, independence, rooster hero worship,
Chick freedom day
Feisty and her chicks liberated themselves today. They usually let me know when they're ready for the big world by starting to leak out. Thing is, Foxy's chicks are days older, and they weren't the ones to start getting out. Once Feisty was out and about though, Foxy got excited. One has such beautiful wings. Who, me? I helped them out by lifting up the side of the chickery, and they started leaking out. One.Two.Three and four.No, I'm back in. All out.
Hens and their chicks
Daisy's chicks have the greatest outfits right now. Worthy of Björk. Silver is still special cottons chicks are little screamers. Always yelling, no apparent reason. They're moved up to the big Silkie house with the grownup hens. Making the rounds of the dish, literally. Feisty's chicks are the newest. Foxy's four: And Galahad's chicks! Monopolizing a feed dish.
A fleet of broody Silkies
Everyone is outside today! First day out for Foxy and her full-size chicks. She's overdue for it, but it's been rainy. Cotton and Daisy know all about out but have also been in for a bit due to weather. Ten to one one of these hens (Cotton) is going to fly out and go big world today. And tonight, one set of them has to go to the big house - move in with the other hens in Silkieland. That means the hens will all scrap to sort out their order again, but the chicks will like that a lot.
Three new chicks
Foxy has managed to hatch 3 of 4 chicks. She somehow broke all her first eggs, and I gave her a second batch, so she has been setting longer than usual. She's used her confinement productively to start regrowing her moulted feathers. One. Two. Three! They're full-size eggs and chicks, looks like two Ameracauna crosses and a Chanticleer. Seems like the danger zone. Foxy is notably the least good-looking of all the Silkie hens, always grubby and making no effort at all. Just a slovenly chicken.
Itty bitty feather slippers
The little Silkie chicks are ridiculously cute. There's five of them; these two and Daisy has three, including the late silver arrival (who's doing very well). It's nice to have Silkie chicks under Silkie moms; I got used to seeing them with the fast-growing, out-sized "regular" babies. The moms are so doting, and fierce! The five are all still tiny fuzzballs, even ten days old, and you can see their feathered feet. I can already tell that this little brown one comes from the "extravagantly feathered feet" stock.
A lot of pictures, for a day I didn't take any pictures
All the things I didn't take pictures of today: Moving the piggies into some lush new jungle land. I paid for it in bug bites, but they're piggy pleased. Chris and Cream Puff canoodling. They really are always together. Two new chicks, little Silkie chicks. Two new broodies, and wooo Nelly, one of them is vicious! This one was broody without eggs. I wasn't sure she was broody because she was sitting, but not on eggs, and she didn't know what to do with herself because she didn't have eggs,
Cuteness is a full time job around here.
The rooster is making himself comfortable in the food tray. I’m just gonna lay down right here. The three pine trees I pruned up are seeing the use I imagined. Ursa and her chicks are under this one, and the teens have decamped from Pine Tree One (leaving that one to the grownups) to their own clubhouse tree, where they are cuddling (too much!). All the trees now have established dust baths, too. There’s a new addition! One teeny tiny little silver chick.
The post-breakfast perching hour
Perching and arranging one's feathers hour. It's the only time besides bedtime that they all get together so closely. Pepper's thinking about a higher branch. The newest babies are on the grass today! This one little silvery grey one is adorable- a new colour; we'll see what he/she turns out to be.
More chicks!
Ursa Minor's looking smug (it's funny how they always look smug or proud when they get their chicks, but it is an achievement that cost endurance and attention). Four chicks! How exciting, she got all of hers. There's one! There's another one. These two new moms got transferred out of their broody kennels into boxes and chickeries today, so I could clean the kennels for the next tenants. Daisy finally got her suite upgrade. This one (tentatively "Wolverina" is still so fierce! She only has two chicks hatched, which isn't good, but she's sticking to her eggs.
Meet the broodies
I've got three little broody Silkie hens, installed in the covered wagons in the greenhouse. Amazingly, they are all from the new set of chickens. Which is great, that means that they have learned how to chicken enough to go broody. Impressive. All of them are sitting on full-sized eggs that I gave them. Four each - I'm hoping for 100% germination, and the hens are petite. In the past, I've always given a Silkie 5-6 big eggs, but they never all seem to hatch. These girls are all excellent sitters.
Circus chickens
What's happening here? I know it might be hard to tell. That would be the notoriously mom-surfing chick, the yellow one, sitting on her mom. Not only that, mom is perching on the swing. With other chickens. The swing is swingy. I rarely see them use it at all. Obviously, she is far too large for mom-sitting at the best of times, but like one of those huge dogs that still thinks it's a lap-sized puppy, she doesn't realize she's outgrown it. And while perching on a swing might not be the best of times.
Spring chicks
The chicks are all alive, even the little half-size yellow chick, but there have been no late hatchings. That's a pretty poor hatch rate - 12 live chicks out of 23 eggs under two hens. The 13th was unlucky. But that is a dozen bright new little lives, which is wonderful. Maybe not all the eggs were fertile, or the late frosts we got made it too cold for them.I'm coming in there. The other chicks are still in the chickery. Usually, they start to break out, which lets me know it's time for them to be at large,
Water off a chick's back
Butterfly party by the GH door. There's a bit of mud there, and it drew a butterfly crowd (why?) Mama hen and her chick duo slip in and out of Silkieland, but stick close by to it. They seem comfortable over there, rather than the far side of the greenhouse. All the chickens could come and go from Silkieland, it's not a secure facility, but most stay. They're a little too crowded for my taste but they show every sign of contentment, so - good enough for now. When I make the next one space will be doubled.
Piglets and chicks.
We got the pigs! Three little piglets. They are very pink, but they are supposed to be sired by a full black Berkshire. It seems they take after their mother. We've finally sorted out our pig transport, after trying dog crates and the back of the car. That extra chickery I made came in, secured with a pallet, and covered with a piece of canvas (becoming as useful and ubiquitous around here as baling twine and wire), so the piglets don't get a sunburn or heatstroke. Our first piglets came in with sunburn and possibly heatstroke, but recovered.
First day in the new coop!
Moment of truth! The grand opening. I dropped the ramp and the birds on the threshold stared, taken aback. Oh, there's the Colonel pushing his way through. Coming through, coming through. I'll show you how it's done. And he did. Then the birds started pouring right out. The rapidity may have had something to do with the angle of descent. I wasn't sure about the steepness of the ramp if they could handle it, but it turns out, they handle it. They accelerate! - they're running by the bottom third, but they can hop and fly the runout,
All aboard!
Another guinea down. This morning she was sitting in the greenhouse-like she wasn't ready to leave yet, and I looked at her twice, and had a feeling, from her posture. When she let me pick her up I knew it was bad. I tucked her in this corner, gave her food and water, which I'm sure she didn't touch, and the other two stayed by her, doting. She just seemed to be breathing a bit hard. An hour later, gone. Such a pretty bird. The feathers around her neck are lilac coloured.
Apples in the greenhouse
I took Apples on a field day. I needed to spend some time broad forking the greenhouse, and thought she could do with some enrichment. Even the world's meekest chicken needs a little time out of the box. I carried her out and set her down in the middle of the greenhouse, and turned around to shut the big doors because it was windy. I look back - no chicken! I go to the other end to shut those doors, all the while looking for her. I can't see her anywhere. I get back inside and start looking behind the things still piled around.
Outside looking in
The five outcast roosters are spending their days gazing through the plastic wall, or fence, at all the fun the others are having, and the hens prancing around. Their coop is on the edge of the woods, but they have gravitated, in a group, to the side of the greenhouse. They haven't investigated too far. Not far enough to find the end of the fence. It's only one section now, to deter them from getting at the rest of the flock (it doesn't take much). There are enough roos in the mix, and I don't want any of these guys' genes.
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