Sizzles, Houdans and More!

First off, let me start by apologizing for being MIA for 2 weeks. It’s been very busy around here. As you may have gathered from my last post, we have expanded to a massive size. It’s just getting bigger by the day. I am loving every moment of it.

Clementine did us proud for the first time last night. Just after midnight, Susan and I were cursing at Koda for barking at what we thought was Dylan upstairs getting something to eat. He continued to bark for five minutes before we started yelling up to Dylan to put his bark collar (citronella spray) on because we needed to sleep. Dylan said that Clementine was freaking out. We are used to Clem barking at night. She barks almost every hour, but it is a distinguishable bark. Not erratic or desperate like this sound we were experiencing for the first time.

Dylan went outside to check what was getting her all riled up. It was a STRAY DOG. Clementine was bouncing off the kennel trying to get at this beagle who was sniffing around the barn. After a few tries, Dylan caught the dog and Susan called our neighbour who was responsible. If I was left to talk to this neighbour, things would have been said. Curses would have been uttered.. Susan is very calm and collected when I am just not.. She explained that this dog can not be on our property because we have livestock and he said Okay. No apologies. Next time the dog goes to the pound. If the dog hurts a chicken, it goes to a pound an hour away. I am not putting up with this shit.

Sorry.. Rant over.. Some people..

Clementine is really starting to grow on me. She is used to the kennel, and gets out daily for a good run. She is not old enough to trust alone with the poultry yet. I need to wait until her puppy energy subsides. She is very playful right now. When we supervise, she ignores the poultry. That is a good sign. It has to be. She has never shown aggression to them, but did show playfulness which is just as dangerous when working with livestock so breakable.

Now on to the County Fair pictures. We took 12 of our birds to a chicken show hosted in Petitcodiac, NB on August 3rd & 4th. We bathed, clipped nails (and beaks) and blew dry most of those 12. Gigi didn’t get a bath, because he was pristine.

We brought:

Carlton.
He was Disqualified for vulture hocks. I don’t see them in this picture, but they were visible (though not stiff like the definition states), so I was a little bummed about that. I think he is beautiful.

Eedie & Lynette – Who were also both DQ for leg colour. I knew they would be, but Jamie said to put them in anyway. The legs are not that hard to breed out if I have a proper coloured rooster. Stanley has slate legs. Hopefully we will get babies with slate legs and pure white. White to white produces white. It should be a worthwhile project!

We brought Phyllis – She won BV for partridge!

We brought Gretta – She won 3rd place – but she was up against Jamie’s GORGEOUS birds.

I mean really.. That’s just not fair! 😛

We brought Skittles – Who WON Champion in her class! GO SKITTLES!

Here she is with her ribbon!

Gigi won Reserve Champion Continental (second place after Skittles).

We took the frilkie boy (right) and he took BV as well, but was the only frizzled silkie, so yeah 😉

We took both Barbaras (We call them both Barbara – and sometimes Brenda if I forget the name Barbara)

The bigger Barbara took best in breed.

We took both Rogers (again same as the Barbara thing).

This Roger took 2nd

This Roger was placed before or after the smaller Barbara.. I am just confusing you now.. Just look at the pretty pictures 🙂

That’s it for the show.. We did well for the first one. After everyone admired and commented on our Mottled Houdans, we called up the breeder and bought 8 more chicks. Every single chick he had.

Did I mention that we also bought 7 bantam Ameraucana from Jamie last week? Oh yes.. There is that too..

The cockerel is Blue.

One pullet is blue (my favourite)

Two are black

One is splash.

There are two backup roosters in case anything happens to the best one.

The call ducks are adorable, though a little mean. Especially to anything smaller than them.

Lorraine has a brood of 7 chicks (6 silkies + 1 smooth sizzle).

We had to create a pen for more chicks.. Sigh.. Here is something I threw together pretty quickly. It works really well. We have an unknown # in there. Under 30 I would say.. Yeah, definitely under 30.

The sizzles are looking awfully sizzley 😀

And we got our first blue egg!

Just some pictures from the last two weeks bellow. Hope my blog posts aren’t too overloaded with pictures. I believe in the saying “A picture says a thousand words”.

3 silkies, 1 sizzle (Lorraine had a staggared hatch and I had to incubate her remaining 4 eggs, all hatched despite nearly 2 weeks of high humidity and no turning. I thought they were due way before they hatched.

Sizzle (2.5 weeks)

Mottled Houdan (2 weeks)

2.5 week old chicks.

4 Week old EE

6 week old pullets (SLW & BR).

McChicken (10 weeks)

Again ❤

Dustbathing RSL pullets (3 weeks)

Barred rock x Cochin pullet (14 weeks)

Barred Rock x Cochin Cockerel (14 weeks)

Adorable blue partridge girl

Silkie (blue or black? I don’t know..)

I’m going with blue… 11 weeks old

Barred Rock x Cochin boys

Rosa ❤

Tilly

6 week old call ducks

Swimming

Sleepy broody chicks..

*exhales*

Okay.. That’s enough for today.. Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment bellow ❤

How Many Chickens Do I Have Now?!! WHAT!?

Yes.. I am shocked and amazed with how much our farm has grown over the last little bit.. After Friday’s hatch – we are up to 132 birds total. How is that even possible you ask? Well, Marge and Flora Mae are proud mothers of 21 little munchkins. I bought 19 Pennies (RSLs) to keep up with demand for our eggs. We were even asked to supply a corner store with farm fresh free-range eggs. This is going to be a fun project, but right now there are a lot of ages mixed in together.

You recall the silkie pen correct?

Well now it is the pen where the silkies are, as well as the broodies, and the injured hens.. It’s a big mixture of things.

Dott hurt her hip or leg pretty badly a couple of weeks ago. It could have been caused by the boys chasing her around and mating her, or she could have hopped down from the roosts the wrong way, but it was causing a lot of problems for her with the boys. An injured hen should not be pursued by that many roosters if she is to heal. She now has nothing to worry about, and is limping less and less every day.

She is in the silkie pen with the broodies and the silkies.. and the chicks..

As are Penny and Harriet. Harriet has a growth on her eye and does not fare well with the big chickens picking on her. Penny needs a break from all the roosters as well.. I really need to do something about all those boys! They need a pen of their own!

So total in the silkie pen is: 51.

We’ve expanded it so it takes up this part of the barn as well.

Here is Marge loving her new role as mother. Flora continues to flog her. The babies seem to favour Marge as cooler mom.

Steve still continues to father all the kids. Here is one of my favourite looking ones. I believe the colour is called Calico.

Here is a blue partridge girl.

Phyllis

Various others.

Heheheh.. 😀

I have more pictures to go through, so you will be seeing more of all these chicks.. Be prepared. They are adorable overload.

Who says Barred Rocks Don’t Go Broody?

Or Rhode Island Reds for that matter!
Either I am a broody magnet, or my layers are giving me a tough go..

Both Ruby and Marge have been broody for a full 3 weeks. They started sitting only days apart. Marge has hatched out three, and Ruby was left to sit on golf balls – because today I am picking up 10 Red Sex Links for her to raise. How cute will it be to see a true heritage Rhode Island Red have a brood of the fake ones. I think it’s going to be something else!

Ruby all settled on her nest.

Marge taking care of her first two chicks. The other one finally zipped this morning. I haven’t seen it yet, was just informed by Dylan that Flora Mae stole the egg and Marge was in a different nest box entirely. Crisis averted.. He locked Flora Mae in her cage until I get home.

Who is Flora Mae you ask? Oh that’s right.. I didn’t mention her.. She is Lorraine’s mother. I bought her from Hallus for $5. She was already broody when I brought her home.

Right now we have 4 broodies. Lorraine, Flora Mae, Ruby and Marge.. They are all in their separate cages in the silkie enclosure.
*sigh* it’s hard to keep track of all these age groups!

(just got a text from Dylan.. “Miss Jackson is broody..” – Miss Jackson being Janet.. – facedesk-)

We have two frizzled chicks from Harriet & George! Party down! 😀

Oh and did I mention the call ducks yet? Well..

Macy was broody.. Her eggs were starting to smell (not fertile, unless Carlton is really a duck and just looks like a chicken). So I went out and bought her 12 little call ducks to call her own.. She was having none of that! She quickly aborted her attempt at starting a family – excuses were many.. they were too loud.. too many.. too needy.. She wanted out. So I let her out.. She didn’t even attempt to nest again.

Family planning 101: Have a teen that wants to get pregnant at 16? Find twin toddlers to stick with her for a weekend. Teenage pregnancy averted.

Anyway.. They are oh so adorable and perfect! Except they make a HUGE mess.. HUGE. SMELLY. MESS.

Don’t let them fool you.. They are monsters that smell like farts.

SMELLY

But oh so cute…

Also added more chicks that I found on sale.. $2.50 a pop! I got 4 barred rock females and 2 straight run Silver Laced Wyandottes. I bought 20 and sold 14 – making a profit by selling them for $6 a chick (they were 3 weeks old or so). I got paid to keep 6 of them. $40 profit! How awesome is that? I only had the other 14 for 16 hours.

They begged me to get rid of the ducks.. Seeing as they all live in the same brooder.. I figured out a way to somewhat control the mess.. More on that later..

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to leave a comment bellow.

Vaccinations

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. We decided to give Clementine another chance. With the proper training and guidance, I know she will get there. If she had have mauled Ida instead of trying to play, it would have been a much tougher decision. We spent a fortune on a huge kennel to keep her in when we are not supervising.

It’s 10 x 10 and has rain cover. If only it would get here this weekend.. I doubt it though. We haven’t had any similar experiences with her since.

On to the more recent happenings:

All of our land fowl were vaccinated on Monday. That was fun. Containing all of them until after lunch, and then trying to catch each one for the vet to put a drop in their eye.. for the younger, they had to be banded. The older ones were vaccinated in December, so they already had their bands. Our little farm is on lock-down for a good 30 days. At least I won’t have to worry about ILT!

Everyone is excited about their new jewelry.

To make it a little less confusing when I say ‘the chicks’, I will say Gen 1 for the first batch of 10 chicks that are now almost 15 weeks old. What?! When did that happen!

That group is the 5 Easter Eggers, the two Mottled Houdans, and the three smooth frizzle mixes.

Gen 2 is the five barred rocks who are almost 10 weeks old.

Yep.. Louanne is definitely a Lou. He is stunning.. Very nice barring.

Gen 3 is the first group of chicks I’ve hatched myself, as well as the 10 Naked Necks. The ones I’ve hatched are 6 weeks old on Saturday, and the NN are going on 5 weeks next Monday.

Do you not want to snuggle that itty bitty silkie?! Oh gosh their cuteness kills me!

This one looks just like Ida. ❤

Are you laughing? 😉

The frilkie is the slowest of the silkies to feather out. Anyone want to guess on gender?

Twerkie is a dead ringer for her mama Marge!

She has quite the personality on her. She seems to be the leader of Gen 3.

Here is Marge at about 8 weeks old.

Jagger on diaper duty.

Showing them his wattle wave.

Tilly & Rosa. What is there to say about these two that could be summarized in words.. They are lovable beyond belief.

Check out their flab! LOL

The girls (Lorraine & Pearl) have been doing so well with their brood of 13! One did die a day or so after hatching. We hatched out one 2 weeks after (long story.. Pearl was sitting on an egg for a little over a week before we gave her chicks, we didn’t want to kill the chick growing inside, so we slipped it in the incubator.. alone.. for 2 weeks.. crazy? Maybe.. but check out the chick!)

Right!? It’s Harriet’s second child! The only one we have. It makes me cringe it’s so adorable.

She/he fit right in with the others! Lorraine and Pearl didn’t even notice there was an extra baby.

Koda keeping watch..

Thanks for reading 🙂

Chick Update

So out of 27 eggs in the incubator – 23 hatched! One silkie was very late hatching, and I decided to help. The membrane had dried out, and I could not watch it die.. It is doing very well. There are no abnormalities or differences to the chicks that didn’t require my help with hatching.

Lorraine & Pearl have their babies (11 in total!) and the rest are in the playpen for now.

Here are the girls with their babies. I just love how Pearl accepted them all without questioning it. She was only sitting for a little over a week. She actually hatched one of Dott’s babies. Lorraine had been sitting on one egg – but Pearl stole it.

While they were outside, Jagger decided to claim the crate I had been using for their nest. He was so very excited about the find.. Boys…

And like always, the girls gathered round him to get a piece of the action.

Lorraine preened while Pearl kept watch..

I love how they can do this. It must be less stressful than being a single broody.

“I’s da man!”

Sure he is..

Jagger had to check out the bitties. He just loves chicks. Harriet had ulterior motives. *sigh* She wanted to tell the moms that she was now higher in the pecking order.

Check out the size of Tilly & Rosa! It’s insane! They definitely weigh more than the silkies.. It’s only a matter of time before they outweigh Jagger.

Jagger did not like that idea…

He would be watching them….

Because HE wears the spurs in this family!

Remember that goslings…

Older chick update.. Everyone is doing well (except those two poor silkies that passed away :(..)

The Naked Necks are getting bigger, but the feathering is slower.

Some of the chicks are so very obviously boys..

The chicks/goslings enjoyed the day outside ALL DAY on Sunday. Some were even too hot. I had to create a shady place to escape the heat (despite it only reaching 25).

Doesn’t this just make you giggle in your heart?

Giggle dammit!

I’m not sure which silkies to keep, though I plan to keep quite a few girls.

Excuse the blurry spot on the camera. I didn’t realize there was a smudge..

This one looks like a girl.

Can you see the size difference?

I went to visit Jaqueline last Saturday to see how my grandchickens were doing 🙂 The silkies were SO cute.

Here is her white chick. I think it’s a pullet ❤

Check out Harriet & Steve’s kid! hehehe

One of Denny’s boys.

The one that is very light and fluffy looking is Olive’s baby.

Oh the cuteness..

This weekend I am going to be selling quite a few of the chicks.. We’ll have to decide which ones to keep for ourselves. We are keeping all the silkies, Twerkie and Penny’s babies.. We also want to keep one of the cochin girls..

I feel very anxious about the whole thing. They are my first, and it will be sad to see them go.

Doesn’t the last picture remind you of this:

❤

Oh so many chicks!

No pictures for today’s post, though I did take a ton of pictures over the weekend. I will have to share those pictures another day..

Right now our eggs are hatching. We have 10 so far, with 17 more yet to hatch. Two of the 3 week old silkie chicks don’t seem to be growing well, and seem weak. I am such a sap. I have a hard time with this.. How will I ever get used to a chick dying? I don’t know if I will.. I don’t know if I want to get used to it.. It’s hard for me to see any animal suffer.

We went to visit Jacqueline who hatched 26 of our eggs 7 weeks ago. The chicks are so cute. We helped her sex a few of them. One of Denny’s babies was easy to spot, and it was missing toenails just like Mom!

I guess there will be one picture today 😉
You can see where Denny is missing her two front nails. I’ve heard this is genetic, and seen a lot in Delawares. My two babies from her do not have missing toenails. All of her kids have very light barring. The two I have are very bossy just like their mommy.

I watched one attack Steve yesterday, and one also tried to attack Jagger. Steve just stood there.. Thinking “Should I retaliate?”

He didn’t.. That’s my good boy!

I am going to keep one rooster from the Naked Neck group. Here’s where I ask you guys for help… What colour? Should I keep a barred boy? I know I have at least three barred boys from the group *sigh*.. I have a red, white and black chicks. If one of those are boys, which colour should I use?

Broodies.. Broodies.. and more Broodies!

Did I mention that Lorraine and Pearl are broody? Yeah.. They are turkeying all around the yard. Screetching at all who come near.. And smelling up the joint. If you’ve ever had a broody – you will know what I mean.. That poo.. It’s.. It’s.. Let’s not speak of it.

Not only are they both broody – leaving me with zero silkie eggs to hatch (ARGH!) but they are co-sitting on three eggs.

Lorraine went broody the day the chicks hatched. The same thing happened with Olive. She went broody when Janet’s eggs were due to hatch (though sadly none did).

I can’t imagine Pearl with more than one chick. She is so tiny.. A week ago I caught her fully covered under Olive – Along with Olive’s five chicks (aged 5 weeks at that point). Does this say that Olive is over weight? Probably.. I’ve told her many times over to consider my offer of Weight Watchers – but she does not like to count calories.

And when I ask her – she looks like I just killed her child.. with torture methods. Yes – she does not like to watch her figure.

Most of my girls enjoy indulging in extra fatty foods. Like Night-crawlers and June-bug Larvae (Love them for the last one!)

Really, in all honesty – Jagger likes his girls with junk in their trunk. It helps him balance.

Jagger is all muscle and no fat.

It’s been a while since I updated on Carlton. He is definitely a man now. 21 weeks and counting. No crowing yet, but he has tried to mate Macy a few times. She is really into him.

Rosa & Tilly seem to have doubled in size. I can’t easily pick them up with one hand anymore. They still follow me around like I’m mama goose. It is heartwarming ❤

Could be my yellow rubber boots 🙂

The oldest chicks are chickens now. They will be 12 weeks old this Saturday. Oh time flies…
Here is Eedie or Lynette. I can not tell them apart. We are going to get zip ties for easier identification.

Stanley has become quite the man!

Bonnie is also really beautiful – they all are.

Phyllis – Hating me for holding her. She is not at all curious like her hatch mates.

Denny’s baby.

Mabel’s baby

One of the barred mixes. Could be either Penny’s or Dott’s baby.. Though I’m not sure.

I really like the silver silkies. They are oh so cute 😀

And We Have Hatch Off!

After stressing over this hatch for 3 weeks and having doubts that we would have anything at all, we were blessed with 27 little fuzzy butts! What was there to worry about? My incubator did it’s job perfectly, and I am very happy with the turn out.

The only thing I wish I had of done differently was put them in egg cartons for lockdown. The hatched chicks were kicking around all the other pipped eggs, leaving them pip side down. I decided that after 14 hours in the incubator, with no sign of drying off (humidity must have been too high) – to take them out after they hatched. Obviously that is not recommended, but it had no adverse affects on my pipped eggs.

Every chick that pipped – zipped. Except for one.. And that was the first guy.. He died not long after he pipped. He was too wet around the mouth. There was foam.. It was sad.. It had me stressing more..

8 hours after the first one died, we had our first chick zipping!

Once they start zipping, it is all in a matter of minutes. It took maybe 30 minutes total for the first one. We dubbed her Twerkie. It is one of the few Barred Rocks that hatched.

Twerkie was the worst for knocking around the eggs.

She decided to sleep on top of all her brothers and sisters.. Sigh…

Not long after Twerkie arrived, a little silkie hatched. Those two were the only ones that hatched on the 21st day. 17 others hatched on day 22. 9 hatched on day 23. One of the day 22 hatchlings died overnight. Not sure why.. Everyone else was fine.

Twerkie got to enjoy the warming rays of the heatlamp. Ahhh.. That’s the life.

There are a lot of black babies from this hatch. We have a total of 18 barred chicks (not all barred rock). 10 silkie chicks, and one random white chick from Penny. I did not know beforehand that a sexlink has a dominant white gene.. She will throw 50% white chicks and 50% barred chicks. Either way, it was a shock.

It is adorable and easy to spot amongst the sea of black fluff.

Mabel has 4 chicks
Marge has 1 (for sure)
Dott has 1 (for sure)
Penny has 1
Lorraine has 7
Pearl has 2
Denny has 2
I got 1 silkie egg from George’s owner

The rest I am not sure.. Only time will tell.

Enjoy these pictures! I just love them all ❤

Guess who’s broody?

*facepalm*

Chicks, Chicks and more Chicks!

Well you can say I’ve gone of the deep end in the chick department.. Right now we have 15 with 36 on the way. Who would have known a tiny flock of four would have grown to this obsession (as Susan would call it). Our first 10 chicks are now 8 weeks old, and the other 5 are now 3 weeks old. Oh how time flies..

Olive is a perfect mother. She protects her babies with a vengence. Even going so far as to attack our house dogs when they walk by.

If barred rocks are indeed sexable by the wash on their legs and the colour of their down, we have 3 girls and 2 boys. This one pictured above has the nicest barring of all five, and it’s one of the girls. This one is my favourite, and I have only named her.

I introduce you to Louanne!

As you can see, the other girls have much more blotchy barring. I hope they grow out of this. Either way, I would bet anything that Louanne will be the closest to the SOP.

She’s inquisitive and adorable ❤

While we are talking barred rock, Marge is very grown up. She is plump and robust *coughfatcough*…

Jagger is a stud! He took over head rooster spot! Steve is in the outs right now. Poor guy.. Jagger feels very good about himself. Not a single ounce of aggression towards humans yet. He does chase Steve around a lot now.

My sweet Honey got Picture of the Week on Backyard Chickens! I am very excited about that! I was also nominated by someone unknown to be a BYC Friend. 🙂 Thank you to whoever nominated me. It  means a lot.

Ida is the only grown chicken that has not started to lay. Will she ever? I’ve come to the conclusion that silkies take their sweet time before coming into lay. Ida is now pushing 33 weeks old today. She has not started squatting and Steve does not show any interest in mating her.

Patience is a virtue….

On to the 8 week old chicks.. Oh God they are cute.. Look at those beards! How can you not smile and squint your eyes in cuteness overload?

I am very happy that I can tell Fern and Willow apart now by beard alone. Fern has the grey beard and Willow’s beard is mostly strawberry blond.

Stay tuned to hear about the hatch due this Friday! I hope we have at least 30 new little fluffy butts to post pictures of. ❤

Eggs Died… One is left.

Janet pushed three eggs that had died before pipping on Saturday.. One lone egg is left, and it is day 23. I am giving up hope. Now it’s just waiting to see if the last one is gone too. I really wish I hadn’t of washed them when they were soiled. 😦

At least we have chicks to give her.. She has taken to motherhood without hesitation. Janet is such a great first-time mom.

The chicks are growing and feathering in nicely. There are shavings EVERYWHERE. We have to vacuum on a daily basis around the playpen. They all are having a blast digging and dust bathing in the shavings. They are becoming little versions of their future selves.

We still have not named many.. Hoover, Bonnie and Eedie. I think we will name one Skittles, and one Murtle. I am just waiting to determine sexes before we make any hasty decisions. Knowing us, we don’t change the names after they are in place. Ruth stayed Ruth despite being a boy.. I don’t want to name one Murtle and have it turn out to be a roo 😉 How embarrassed would he be?

I have my theories on these three. I think two are girls (left and middle) and the one on the right is a male. Let’s see if I’m right!

Feel free to give your two cents. I have not raised chicks before, but I have read a lot of sexing tips. Apparently boys feather in slower. That is one reason I think the one on the right is a boy. I also have read that boys have thicker legs (he does). He also just has masculine eyes in my opinion.

He also feels heavier than the other two.

As for the Easter Eggers.. I really don’t know..

There’s this one..

He/She could be either..

Still thinking that the frizzle mix #1 is a boy. He is very bossy.

This is Hoover.. Thinking Hoover may be a boy as well.

This is the slowest feathering EE chick. Could it be an roo?

**Darn them and messing up their food! I clear it out 3 times a day from shavings *Rolls eyes**

Eedie or her look alike ❤

Bonnie – If feathering in girls is faster, she is definitely a girl. Her brothers born the same day have much less feathering than she does.

The three Frizzle crosses.

This week is supposed to be beautiful outside. I hope to take them out to explore if Janet is ready.