Hatch #3 and something's eating chickens

First things first, something is eating my chickens. UGH this makes me so angry! It happens. I get it but it doesn't mean I have to be okay with it. Especially since it took two of our favorites.

Don't foxes eat pigs? No? Hm. The only way in the coop is through the pig door (for a fox anyways) and we are surprised either the pigs didn't put the run on the fox or that there aren't more feathers all over the place with having to haul a dead chicken OVER a fence - twice (we have a divider in the barn). Of course, it's also stealing during the day so that might be when they are mostly getting taken.

I put Missy in the chicken coop overnight and just let her out at 530 am. I kind of regret letting the chickens out already because at least with Missy in the coop with them they were 'safely' contained but now they are free to be eaten and she doesn't really stick with them. I think our next dog will have to be a livestock dog that we train to be with the chickens.

#IwonderifIcantrainalabtodothat?

In other news, 13 chicks have hatched in my 3rd (and final) hatch before summer holidays. There are still more to come and today is the official hatch day (well started last night technically) I adjusted the temperature on my incubator and it seems to be making a huge difference. I haven't had any chicks getting stuck or incomplete or issues - so far anyways.

I have had 4 or 5 of Polly's bantam eggs hatch. #whatamIgonnadowiththem?
I have a lavender Orpington that hatched that I'm pretty stoked about and the other egg is pipped. Booyah.
The rest seem to be Barred rock x (like Shadow) and brownish or yellowish and one really dark brown one that came from a green egg.
Oh. And an Australorpe so far.

In Broody news, out of the 8 or 9 eggs they started off with, 3 hatched and there's another one under a 3rd broody in the Big Coop. I'll move her over today because it will hatch today - probably. I'll give her some incubator babies too. The two broodies also adopted my 2 week old Silkies and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes. #Surewhynot?

Once more time - pissed about losing some chickens to a fox/cat/skunk/whatever.

I don't like it one bit. Here's some pictures :

Co-parenting. There's 7 chicks in between the 2 of them. Might be more.
Not sure who might sneak in there. 

These are 2 of my cochins. They are looking really good.

Amelie's Fireheart - Gold Laced Crested Polish at 5 weeks old. So pretty

We have a pip!

Both broodies are in the chick coop. Sitting nicely. The 2nd once, let's call her Blanche because ONE of them at some point was named Blanche.

So. Blanche has 4 brown eggs under her (replacement brown egg layers) and one of them has a pip. The other chicken, let's call her … I don't know. I'll take suggestions or think of something later, she has 3 of Polly's eggs - or Pocket's. I'm not sure but they are bantam sized anyways. I'm not sure when the small eggs will hatch.

My incubator eggs are going on lock down on Wednesday, maybe Tuesday. The bantam eggs are looking kind of close already and the smaller eggs sometimes DO hatch a bit early.

So. Once I see what is hatching and when it's hatching then I can rearrange my coops properly and my eggs.

In order to make some 'quiet' in the coop I had to move some 9 week olds out. Hopefully they are big enough to defend themselves. I put out two the night before and then a few more today.

Blanche

External Pip

9 weeks old and in the Big Coop

Cookie - I'm thinking of changing her name. Honey? Hickory? Hmmm

Brownie and a black one with no name.
They finally left the Big Coop to explore outside. 

Sophie and my fave gray one. 

Moving Coops

I attempted to move the 2nd broody today. It resulted in a very panicky hen, very upset and not sitting. I let her out of the small coop. She ran immediately back to her 'spot' in the big barn. I couldn't give up because she can not have her babies in there. They will be eaten by the cats. Or dogs. I dragged out one of our cages and put it below the nesting boxes and then put some 'fresh eggs' and plopped her in there and shut the cage top. She wasn't thrilled but she DID sit down on those eggs. Tomorrow I will let her out to eat/drink etc … and once she's back in the cage I will cover it and in a bit after that, I will move her to the chick coop. 

I literally, have no idea when my chicks will hatch. I THINK sometime in the next 3-5 days (ish?). I do have a hen sitting on all the eggs in the small coop right now but I have some eggs that aren't in the 3-5 day window so I would prefer both hens to sit. I will be running the risk that once one hen hatches out three or four eggs she'll get up and be like 'k done' and then so will the other and I'll have eggs not ready for hatch sitting there. 

Ah. But don't worry because while I was sneaking some 9 week old chicks into the BIG COOP, I spotted another hen sitting in the nesting boxes. Another broody. Perfect timing haha. 

Speaking of my 9 week old chicks, I graduated 2 of them into the BIG COOP. I'm not worried about flock integration, I'm worried my cats will eat them. I chose my 2 biggest, fluffiest, bravest ones and snuck them in. They were sleeping just fine next to Polly and Pocket when I went in there so hopefully they are good to go and I can start moving some of my other ones over. I will need the room right away. I have 21 - 4 week olds. I have 7 eggs under 2 broodies (not a big deal actually) and then 40 in the incubator. I don't expect all 40 to hatch. AT ALL. But even if 20 hatch … I still need to squeeze them in there until they are big enough for outside. 

I really need a little coop with roosts attached to my chicken run Corey built me. Just somewhere they can be safe out of the rain kind of thing and out of the wind. Hmmm. I'll look around the yard tomorrow maybe I can get an idea. 

I'll also get some more pictures, especially since they are all growing out their feathers so nicely! Only have about 8-10 more weeks until it'll be time to cull my other hens. 

Except my broodies. I'm going to doctor them up a bit, even if they don't survive they deserve a spa. 

#raisingbabiesissuperhard, #lovemychickens, #thekidslovechickenstoo 

Moving the broody

It's getting about time for my broody's eggs to hatch. I'm not actually sure when they will hatch because I forgot to mark the date. Whoops.

I have 2 broodies and when I tried to move one early in the sitting she lost her marbles. This time I had a better plan.

I prepared the laying box in the chick coop, it's up high and the babies can't get up there. I put some fresh eggs in there and turned all the lights off. I went over to the big barn, gave her eggs to the other broody to 'babysit' then pulled her out and carried her to the smaller coop. I put her in the nesting box with the eggs, which she looked at, then looked down at the noisy coop. She wouldn't stay in her box. Gah.

I watched her for a while as she ate and drank and eyed up the other chicks in the coop. She was clucking like a mama hen and I thought she was debating adopting some 8 week old chicks or some 3 week old ones haha, but she didn't. I didn't give up. I decided to go switch some cages around and lock her up.

I was pretty confident she would sit in a cage,  but by the time I got back with the cage she was up in the nesting box sitting on her eggs. I just checked on her a little while ago and she was still sitting there.

I'll give her until tomorrow and then move over her eggs and possibly the other hens eggs.

This weekend the 8 week olds are moving outside to their small run. I want to get a better plan to move flocks around. They would be totally fine with my big hens now but it's my cats that have me annoyed and worried. Some of my chicks aren't big enough to be 'scary' but others are big enough to scare me lol. I for sure have two roosters and SOMEONE is crowing already! It's adorable. I haven't caught which little one is crowing yet but I have a pretty good idea.

I will be selling a few of these. They are Brahma crosses and I have what might be a gold laced Barnevelder rooster. Not sure. I really just need a few of these ones to make my flock interesting.

#whoisit, #bigfluffychicks, #needtomakeroom

Broodies! and an update on my 7 week old babies

I have been complaining all spring that my hens weren't being broody. I recently cleaned the ENTIRE summer coop, like top to bottom (not the pig side but I'll have to get in there this summer), scraped it right out, fresh bedding, lifted their nest boxes, moved their roost. ETC.

Shortly after that my first hen became broody. I didn't take her too seriously but after a few days I let her keep 5 eggs that I marked. I still didn't take her seriously because she kept switching nest box. Finally I took her seriously and decided I would give her some eggs to actually sit, but first I candled the five I gave her. Welp. They are all growing so I just left her with those. They are … 7 days (ish) along.

Broody # 1

Then the day after I let hen #1 have eggs (I should name her. Maybe she already has a name and I forgot it …) Broody Hen #2 decides to sit. I don't take her seriously for a few days but it's been three days so I gave her three of Polly's eggs. They are tiny and she wasn't convinced she had eggs so I snuck one from hen #1 and put it under hen #2 so she thinks she has 'big' eggs.

Both hens were broody last year because they have blue bands on their legs. I'm going to add another blue band on their legs this year and contemplate keeping them another year. I feel like they're earning their keep?

In other news, the April 2019 chicks are getting SO BIG. Three of my favorites have died already Darkside, The grey rooster and a big fluffy chick with brown on top of his black. So pretty!

Oh well, c'est la vie I guess.

Here are some pictures of the 'still alive'! ones

Supposed to be Nolan's chick but
I like it and might claim it. It's SO PRETTY. 

Maybe he'll trade for Sophie who … I think is a rooster. 

Speedy @ 7 weeks. 

Splash @ 7 weeks

Amelie's Twilight @ 7 weeks

Cookie @ 7 weeks

William's white rooster @ 7 weeks. He's actually QUITE a bit
smaller than the other chickens. There is one white one like Splash

that is also small like him. Bantams maybe? 

So much happens in 7 days

Alright, first off, I got my new - temporary - position as director at the place I work at. So that's super cool and already keeping me super busy.

I'm also supposed to be working on an assignment right now but … break time.

Also, also, since the last post those last two eggs hatched out some dark cochins. It will be super cute to see what color they end up since their mamas were white cochins and their daddy was a buff. All three chicks I got from this mix are dark colored. #funright?!

Out of all that hatch I did get 21 chicks (2 were from my own farm eggs).

Hatch number three was put in the incubator last night so it hatches July long weekend (hopefully) and it has replacement layer eggs. The roosters are not related to the hens - not even the same breeds, but should be very interesting little hatchlings! There is also some of Polly's eggs and maybe Pocket's. The last egg Pocket laid though was ginormous and hatched out a non-fluffy legged chick. I either mixed it up somewhere but she had definitely laid a very big egg.

The big, little chicks (7 week old ones) are outside, in a special chicken run - again - after our first attempt resulted in 3 losses to the cats, including William's Darkside polish cross chicken. He's heartbroken but I do have my hands on a silkie x I will try to bring home in the next couple weeks. Gah. He's so bummed. So they are down to 12. I didn't put out the 3 white polish/silkie/mystery chicks because I didn't want to risk losing them.

I also have a broody hen. She was broody last year and quite possibly the year before. She has a blue band on her leg. I'll have to add a band every year she is broody it's getting hard to remember. I let her keep 5 brown eggs thinking she wasn't too serious but when I candled today, with intentions of tossing rotten or infertile eggs out, I found 5 growing eggs around the 5-7 days growth. Alrighty then. She can keep them.

I am still getting almost 2 dozen eggs a day from my chickens. They must be super pleased with all the attention they get and the foot rubs (eye roll) so if you are looking to buy some free-range chicken eggs let me know ;) Technically I get 24 eggs plus a half an egg? Polly's eggs aren't very big at all.

Also - all my cats had kittens and I have no idea where any of them are. At all. I can sometimes hear them but … I can't find them. I keep hoping they'll just bring them out to me but given my somewhat non-friendly attitude towards them they might keep their babies hidden.

#dontblamethem, #butcutebabykitties, #alsogettinganotherrabbit, #donttellcorey

Hatch # 2 and 6 week olds

Phew! It's been a while. I've been busy.

I applied for a new job (kinda?). Our director is taking a mat leave.

But more importantly, hatch #2 is done. I have 2 chicks drying off still, they were stragglers but the official count is 21 out of 32 with one death post hatch and 3 assists. I also put two in cups because they weren't quite done absorbing and that worked pretty good actually.

I got :

4 Buff Orpingtons
2 Crested Polish (2 different colors)
3 Cochins (all three are black but the hens were white and the roosters tan!)
3 Americauna (1 was from my own eggs - he's kinda mean actually.)
3 Australorpe
1 Barred rock (can't tell the difference between any of these guys)
3 lavender orpingtons but one hatched black/yellow
1 booted bantam
1 chick from my eggs that was supposed to be a bantam cochin but is huge and also not a cochin.

But one of the black/yellow ones died and I won't really know which one it was until they feather out.

Time to clean the incubator, sanitize it and get it ready for the next hatch, due to hatch July long weekend.

My other, older chicks are now 6 weeks old and itching to get outside. I don't blame them but need a safe place for them to go. Because … cats … grrrr. Hopefully Corey can rig something up for me. It would just be for a short while because they are growing quickly and will soon be big enough to defend themselves.

Also. I have a great many eggs in my fridge. If you read my blog and would like some eggs, message me and I'll give you a special price instead of our usual 4$/dozen.