When you want to hatch special eggs

I have promised myself several times that I would not get more birds unless they were purebred birds. I did a little research and thinking and decided that having chicks now, in the winter, would be a good idea because when they are ready to start laying in 6 months, it will be spring. The problem is that our eggs are "barnyard mixes" and local breeders have let their birds all roam together for the winter and so their eggs aren't pure bred either.

Someone recommended that I buy some on Ebay, and that is how I found myself in a bidding war for various chicken eggs tonight. I haven't been on ebay in at least 8 years!

We won 6 (or more) New Hampshire eggs from a German bloodline.  These were two of the pictures that the sellers had posted.

And we won 11 (or more) Silver Laced Wynadotte eggs from the Foley bloodline.  These were the pictures they had posted.

I can only hope that they all arrive in one piece, that I am smart enough to handle them carefully, and that between the broody hen and the incubator that we have a good hatch rate.  If we can get just half of them to survive that would be about 9 chickens, and so maybe 4 hens to add to the flock.  

I'm also planning to pick up some other chicks from a local seller next weekend.  

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Tucking the girls in

One of our youngest girls has decided to go broody.  Every night for almost a week, I have found her in a nest box on the eggs from that day.  I keep taking them from her because we need eggs to eat, but she won't budge.  The last few days there haven't been very many eggs and I'm wondering if she's scared the girls off.

I think this was only confirmed tonight when I found an egg on the ground in the coop.

Clyde's Last Kids

I took these pictures a few days ago but when I looked at them today I realized just how big the babies have gotten.  They're only two months old, and they're just about the same size as Silkie Sue!  The oldest is still hoping that one of these will be a rooster just like Clyde, and I have to say that I'm hoping for the same thing.

Pictures of the eggs never get old for me

It looks like the girls are finally using more than two nesting boxes.  We found eggs in three of the boxes this week and have caught three girls nesting during the day in different boxes.

And here is a picture of the 9 eggs I collected one day this week.  It is always so cool to see the different colors.

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Pumpkin Seeds and Chickens

I tossed all of the pumpkin seeds in the dehydrator last week and when they were done I decided to take them out to the chickens.

My patience has finally paid off because all of the birds will eat out of my hand now.

Buffy's in Solitary Confinement

Buffy has been molting and looking pretty ragged.  She's even lost quite a bit of weight and has me a little worried.

I've read that giving a molting chicken more protein is important and I know that they can get picked on more by the other chickens because the new feathers is something interesting to pick at.  So I decided to put her in a crate inside the coop for a few days.  Each morning I made her some scrambled eggs and we mixed in some dried meal worms. 

I'm sure she wasn't happy to be alone in there, but I think it was good for her to have some solitude.  

Several days later she still looks ragged, but I can see the new feathers growing in so I let her out to free range for a bit.  Her ragged look was only more obvious to me then, next to the healthy looking birds.

Another Weird Egg

Check out this crazy one.  It looks like it just didn't have time to finish closing shut.  I accidentally touched the middle when I set it down and it broke, letting some of the egg white through.  

Someone wants some peace and quiet

This little girl has been "missing" from the coop every night for over a week.  Each time, I find her alone in the "guinea coop".  Each time, I scoop her up as she fights back, and carry her into the big coop.  Poor Girl.

I think she needs a name since she has been standing out from the rest of her flock.

More manageable chicken numbers

We've known for about a month that we had too many roosters.  I originally thought that we should have about 5-8 hens for each rooster, but then read that you should have about 10 hens per rooster.  We had only had about 20 hens in all, and when Clyde was still around, we had 9 boys.  While I would rather give the boys to homes that would keep them as pets, there just aren't homes for them since everyone is dealing with the same issues that we had.

Every week or so, someone would pull up our driveway and ask if we sold chickens.  I would always tell them that we had a few roosters that we needed to get rid of, and if they promised to kill them as quick and painlessly as possible, I would sell them.  It was always hard for me because I felt so guilty giving the birds to someone that was going to eat them, but I knew I couldn't keep them, and I didn't have any other options.

After a few visits from strangers, we sold our last birds yesterday.  The man came on Friday asking if we sold birds but he needed someone that would do the killing and plucking, I managed to find someone that would do it on Saturday, so he came back for them.  He asked us to lead him over to her house and since I was curious to see where the woman lived, I went along.

I've met the woman a few times and she was the one that helped to band the goats last spring, but I'd never been to her house.

While they killed and plucked the birds, I stayed pretty far away but the set up was interesting as long as I didn't think about it happening to a live animal.

I did get pictures of the equipment, but even as I write this, I feel bad to post them.

So, we are down to 4 roosters, with plans to get rid of one more to someone that wants to breed him.

We have two pure bred Buff Orpington roosters, one of the larger black and white roosters (that doesn't crow as often as the one we got rid of), and the gray rooster.

There is one more hen that I think we need to get rid of and we need to see what Silkie Sue's current chicks grow up to be, but hopefully things will go smoothly from here on out.

Feeding Frenzy

Almost every day this week I have taken some time to go outside and feed the birds. 

I think the joy these girls bring to me is clear on my face.

I'm sure I thought "chicken people" were nuts before I owned any, but I just can't explain how peaceful and calming it is to sit with them and watch them just be.

The good news is that almost all of them are now willing to eat out of my hand.

The bad news is that the girls seem to think they can just walk into our mud room to look for more treats.  (Please ignore the mess!)

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Silkie Sue, What Are You Up To?

SilkieSue's youngest babies are getting bigger.  They're no longer tiny puff balls, in fact, as I watched one squeeze out of the chicken run today, I realized they wouldn't be able to fit through very much longer.

We thought these were the last five chicks that would come from Clyde, and we were hoping one would end up being a rooster that looked (and acted) like Clyde.  

But it looks like one of our newer roosters may have gotten to a girl about a month ago....

I hadn't even considered that any of the eggs could have been from one of the other roosters, but there is no way that this white chick came from Clyde.

I also noticed that SilkieSue's back feathers are finally starting to grow back in, over a year after they were broken off by Clyde.

 And then I went back to the coop tonight to count the birds.  I saw SilkieSue sitting up on the roost and I thought this was strange so I looked down in the corner where she's been staying with the babies.

I was missing a chick so I looked back up at SilkieSue.

How the heck did she get that chick up there?!

Everything is growing

The guinea keets are almost adults now.  They aren't quite the same size as the two guinea that we had left, but they are definitely getting there.

Carrie is as prissy as ever.

And the pure bred Buff Orpington roosters are gorgeous.

Just a few little picture updates.

Easter Egger

Easter Egger had her wings plucked by another bird.  I'm not sure who the bully was, but it got so bad that I pulled her into the crate in the mud room a week or two ago and took these pictures.  We sprayed Blue-Kot on her, which is a medicine for wounds on animals. 

You can see broken feathers and some missing

Now, a few weeks later, the blue is almost all gone and we saw new feather growth.  Yesterday, after I took these pictures, I let her out of the crate to join the flock.

She went straight to the first spot she could find and started digging for bugs.

So far she's done well with the flock so I think she'll be fine.

In Memory of Clyde

The Chicken Chick is a woman who has a major chicken blog and a Facebook page that is viewed around the world.  She is very informative and helpful to chicken folks.  The other day she was offering a couple free chicken decals and told people to comment with what they were doing for the weekend with their birds and she would randomly pick four winners.

I am not one for attempting to win any sort of prize, but with Clyde passing away and the oldest having a hard time with it, I thought it would be nice to comment to try to win him the decal.

I shared that we had recently lost my son's pet rooster and that weekend we were actually having him cremated.  Kathy replied telling me to give her our address and she would send him whichever decal I thought he would like.

Sure enough, a few days later this arrived.

Johnathon was quiet for awhile while he thought about it and then said how nice it was that she sent the card.  I pointed out that there was something else in the envelope.

He was happy that someone thought about him and then I explained that she'd just recently lost one of her amazing roosters as well.  "Really?"  he asked.  Yes, I explained how her rooster had also been sick and she lost him too and I could see the light in his eyes change as he realized he wasn't alone.

A few days later the name plate arrived for Clyde's box.

The Chicken Chick

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R.I.P. Clyde

Clyde took a turn for the worst last night and didn't stand up on his own a single time.  Even when we got him out of the crate to give him his medicine, he wasn't opening his eyes for very long.  

This morning, his comb was nearly all black and he would only open one eye briefly.  His breathing was very labored and I knew he wasn't going to last very much longer.  Johnathon went outside to check on him and watched him take list last few breaths.

It was devastating and has taken a major toll on both of us.  I started to dig a grave for him but quickly realized I wouldn't be able to bury him the same way we had buried the other birds.  I found a place that would cremate him and we will be picking up his ashes in a wood box this weekend.

Clyde was an amazing bird and definitely was a very influential part of our family learning that chickens were more than just egg producers.  His personality was a delight to see each day from the way that he would call his girls over to get treats he had found to the way that he came running to us each time that we came outside.  

He is missed and will be missed every day both by the oldest son and I, as well as his girls.  

These pictures are in order from when we first got him at about 3 months old to the last picture we have of him when he was healthy.  I'm choosing to leave the pictures of him in his weakened state out of this post as that isn't how he deserves to be remembered.  He was a tough bird and a fierce protector of his girls, but was an amazing friend to my oldest son.

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Clyde with two of his daughters

Doing his manly duties

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