elliemoon

MEET THE PULLETS, MINUS TWO

let's just start by doing the basic introductions and leave the "minus two" for later, because it's partially sad. it's a "good news, bad news" kind of thing. here they are, almost all grown up::

now for the first story. right here, below dandelion, there should be a picture of daisy. daisy and dandelion are a pair from the same hatch; two pearl white leghorns named after flowers, just like our first leghorn, buttercup. the good news? she's alive. she's just not very picture friendly at the moment as she was completely scalped by the other chickens. completely. it was disgusting and traumatizing for chicken and humans alike. i'm pretty sure i was washing, flushing out and applying ointment to straight brain matter. it was touch and go that first day of treatment, but somehow she survived it and is just about all healed up. quite the bald spot of scar tissue, but alive. i will share a pic of her when she is ready to be reintegrated into the coop. so, here, we are good. slightly scarred for life, but good. unfortunately that brings us to scarlet's story. poor, poor scarlet::

this would be where the bad news comes in. the bad news is, she is no longer with us. but because of her, cotton and midnight are still clucking. these were the last three being held out of the main coop and scarlet was older and much bigger than cotton and midnight. but she didn't resort to the normal "i'm bigger than you, so i am going to hunt you down and peck the life out of you" chicken-pecking-order thing. instead, she snuggled up to them at night and squawked when she was separated from them. scarlet really could have been integrated into the coop with daisy, dandelion, kiwi and coco. she was much closer in age and size to those four. i left her with the two littles just because they had such a cool thing going on and i figured she could protect them inside of the coop when the time came. i didn't expect her to have to do that outside of the coop against a siberian husky. obviously, she was no match for maisy. i wasn't there when it happened, but i like to imagine that she got a few pecks in. i really loved this chicken. i admit it. as for maisy, i still love her, but time heals. and now that she has had the taste of chicken, i am a wreck whenever she is around them. so is indy. poor indy too. she has turned into the most competent and reliable chicken farmer i have ever seen. she has been doing the morning and night shifts of moving these last chickens around while we're waiting for them to be ready for the coop. i haven't dealt with them directly in weeks. these are just as much her babies as they are mine. it was a rough day for both of us.

do you see what i mean about chicken drama? you've got to be prepared if you are thinking about chickens people. you really do. 

 

 

SPRING CHICKS GALORE

so, i never told you guys that we lost mabel and dottie just before spring hit. they were our speckled sussex chickens. mabel dropped in the coop, no explanation, no noticeable trauma. dottie died dramatically, with the girls trying to nurse her back to health and circling her with flowers while she was resting. this was easter morning. it put a slight damper on the festivities, but she held out until the next day, so egg hunting and candy eating were still 97.5% enjoyed. in the end it was very sad. especially for ellie, who had claimed and named dottie. there is a picture commemorating her on our fridge::

the drama that goes along with chicken keeping has begun (complete with broody hens and chicken sitz baths.....but those are stories for another day). interestingly the loss of mabel was not nearly as tragic. apparently if you don't name the chicken it's much easier to have them disappear. no emotional attachment and such. poor mabel. 

originally we had planned for six chickens and started with eight because we knew sometimes things like this just happen. but of course, i felt the need to replace. and then i got a little carried away. we started with two pearl white leghorns because buttercup (our first leghorn), is our best and most consistent layer. she has not missed a day and lays at the same time every morning::

then a friend of mine was able to find and order four black copper cuckoo marans for us to split (a breed that i have been searching for). they are known for laying a very dark, chocolate colored egg. the shade can vary though, so time will tell if these will be the darkest egg layers. fingers crossed. i'm so, so happy to have them (thanks viola)::

i had two more breeds that i wanted to purchase (one araucana and one barred rock) and then my sister came for the weekend and surprised me with these two olive egger pullets! they look like little doves and are super mellow and sweet. i am in love. she has some of her own and had been texting me pictures of the olive eggs. i got all excited about them and so, when she heard there were more available this season, she grabbed two and brought them down from a little farm north of boston (thanks jen). they are a cross between a welsummer and an araucauna. suddenly i had the six new chicks that i had set as my absolute limit::

but what's one more? i had to grab the araucana::

and then the barred rocks came in. and there was one left when i went to the feed store for chicken treats and oyster shells. one left. it was meant to be! but the others, by then, had gotten a little bit bigger, and so i needed to grab a friend for her so she would be safer in the chick pen::

one final chick, a little white giant::

from 6 to 15 (in case you lost count). my advice to anyone considering getting chickens: plan for more than you think you want. especially if you have six egg eaters in the house. not to mention the fact that some chickens have issues. for example; chickadee pecks a hole in her egg after laying it, josephine has a deformed rear end and lays a mushy, scary looking egg every month or so, and hetty just came off of FIVE weeks of being broody. toss in bean's recent sitz bath and like i said; chicken drama. it's happening.

 

 

BROWN EGGS

just after the first blizzard, one of the buff orpingtons started laying. and this time we didn't have to do any chicken training:: 

soon after, and even with all this cold and snow and ice, we started getting a darker brown egg. i had thought it was a speckled sussex egg but i found bean hanging out in the nesting box yesterday, which would make it a cuckoo maran egg::

i am so loving these hardy hens. we are in the coldest throws of winter and we're getting nearly a half dozen eggs a day. not sure how we ever survived without them. 

 

 

BLUE WINS

the excitement over the first blue egg was something to behold. again though, it was found in a hole under the coop. this time it was my turn to crawl in after it. apparently all of the chickens need to be trained individually. they don't "watch and learn". i assumed buttercup would lead the way, but no such luck. we washed off the dirt and put the first blue egg into the nests with the faux eggs and chickadee has been using the boxes ever since. blue eggs were the big news around here until christmas eve morning when we found the goose egg::

i thought indy was playing a trick on me when she brought it in. i was on the phone and hadn't realized she went out to check the coop. it looked bigger than her hand. i knew this might happen with buttercup. my sister had told me a horrifying story of how she nursed her leghorn back to health after it had passed an egg almost the size of itself. the story involved said chicken living in the house and lots of warm baths....for the chicken. it also involved other details but you don't want to know them. i hope that buttercup will remain strong in her random large-egg-laying. she seemed unscathed this time around. and the egg was a double yolker as expected! a christmas miracle!!

 

THE FIRST EGG

if i were being completely honest, i would title this post "the second egg", but it just doesn't have the same ring. our first official egg was laid in a nearly unreachable spot and in the mud. it was broken. apparently the first layer, buttercup, didn't want to use the comfy nesting boxes. a quick search online said we needed to "train" them. golfballs will work, but lucky for us the kids had exactly three fake egg's in their play kitchen. we put one faux egg in each of our three nesting boxes and left the ladies in the coop until lunch (they are known to lay mostly during the morning hours). and just like that::

so incredibly exciting. we've been getting one egg a day since, and always in the nesting box now. as the days get shorter, i'm not sure how many more we can expect, but we're all waiting for the day that we'll find a brown egg or a blue one. it's a great subject of debate right now. when and what color. my money is on brown. 

happy december! 

 

 

MEET THE PULLETS

the love remains, even after the fluff-ball stage. everyone spends ample time hanging out by the run. it's the new place to be. breed list: 2 speckled sussex, 2 buff orpington, 2 araucana, 1 cuckoo maran and 1 pearl white leghorn. they are, thankfully, out of the bathroom and living the good life in a spacious coop. a coop that is just about there. more news on that to come. 

happy long weekend!

 

CHICKEN COOP IN PROGRESS

it's almost there! and just in time. our youngest chicks are almost eight weeks old. and they are not chicks anymore. luckily big b found a larger temporary home for them, but they are still in the bathroom. which is interesting. and kind of smelly. can't wait to move them in.

 

MORE LITTLE CHICKS

the rest are here! two beautiful buff orpingtons::

owen's cuckoo maran, named bean::

and two of the cutest araucana's you've ever seen::

the beige araucana is kai's and will go by chickadee, according to the majority. his choice was bobina, the female form of bob. this was quickly shot down by all siblings. luckily, being twelve, he is not terribly concerned with which chicken is named what or if said name is cute enough. so it wasn't an issue. the chicken's full name, for the record, will be chickadee bobina. and kai is satisfied. we also now have a speckled sussex named mabel. just three more to name. and one coop to finish. and then we're good!

 

LITTLE CHICKS

yay for chickens! something i've been waiting for and dreaming of. the time has finally come. it's really happening! and the kids are in love. a couple speckled sussex::

and one pearl white leghorn named buttercup, whom indy has claimed::

more are on the way after the weekend. so very exciting. in the end we'll have a nice mix of breeds. and hopefully a stylish chicken coop. happy saturday and sunday!

 

A FAMILY EVENT

maisy's first bath! so exciting. mostly because it's been a running joke that she would see her first birthday before her first bath. well, we finally made it happen::

and she was so well behaved! she stayed put for her mohawk and let everyone take a turn scrubbing. shake, shake::

all done::

as it turns out, wet, fresh-from-the tub dog, smells just as offensive as needs-to-be-bathed dog. i think her next bath will be in the ocean!