Well, at least one that I know of. The chicks were due yesterday, but snowflake never hopped off of her nest, so I couldn’t tell if they’d hatched yet. But, just a few minutes ago, I went outside and heard some peeping. One little chick had just hatched (I believe this one is an Ameraucana and Black Australorps mix)! YAY!!! Babies!
You can see her peaking her black head out from under moms wing.

In celebration of the upcoming hatching, Kaia and painted the broody house and the feeder. I really like the color they add to the yard!

We went out to candle the ladies eggs this evening. I made my own candler with a strong flash light and a piece of cardboard wrapped to make a cone for the egg to sit above. that focuses the light so that it shines through the egg.

I thought it would be a good idea to see how development was going. That way, if there is an egg that isn’t developing or is full of bacteria, I could get rid of it so that it doesn’t explode or contaminate the other eggs. This site has some nice pictures to follow, as does this one. The main thing was looking for the blood vessels. It’s not so easy when you have chicken that lay dark eggs. I checked Snowflakes eggs at 7 days and saw a spot in each of the eggs (the eye of a developing chicken), but couldn’t see veins. Today (day 11) when I checked I was able to see a moving chick in each of the eggs! YAY! You go Snowflake!! she’s on seven eggs.

In Sparkle’s eggs, it wasn’t as easy. She’s only been on her seven eggs for 6 days. I found three that had obvious blood vessels and 4 eggs that I couldn’t tell. I’ll candle hers again at 11 days to see if I see any moving chicks.

We tried to take pictures, but our camera sucks! Here’s the best one we got. There was a moving chick in this one. You can’t see that, but you can see the air bubble that develops along with the chick.

What are we going to do with all these babies?? We need to build a larger coop!

Well, they say (who ever They are) that Silkies often go broody and make great mamas. So far, They are right. Both my silkie ladies are broody. Snowflake started sitting on eggs this past Sunday, and Sparkle started sitting a few days ago. So, Toby, sweet construction man that he is, made a broody box for the ladies. He constructed it so that two chickens can use it at the same time, without getting into each others business. I’ve heard that once the chicks hatch, the mamas can get violently defensive. So, we didn’t want to risk that by having them sit in the same area.

Each ‘pen’ is 3′ by 18 inches, making a 3′x3′ box. They have an area for sitting and a space to eat and stretch their legs a bit. The top is hinged so that we can get in and out without too much interruption to the ladies.

Here’s my hotty husband getting started with the box.

Putting the box into place, just outside of the main coop.

Looking into one of the ‘pens’

We moved them in tonight, once it got dark (it seems to bother them less if you move their nests at night.) Snowflake (sitting on 7 eggs) settled right back down and Sparkle (sitting on 8 eggs) went to check out the grub.

Hopefully, in early May, we will have some babies.

I took Judy’s advice and went on the internet and found a really simple pattern for a chicken apron
Here are two simple patterns… I used the second one. Chicken apron 1 and Chicken apron 2 (Scroll ~3/4 of the way down).

I had some extra green fleece from Leif’s leaf blanket, so I just cut an 8×8 inch square and cut two holes in it for the wings. She doesn’t seem to mind having it on.

Here’s her poor back:

And here she is modeling her new and stylish apron:

I guess I’ll just take it off to wash it occasionally, and once her feathers come back, maybe I’ll take it off for a little break…

Our pour hen, Vera, is a little worse for the wear since we got our rooster. He really seems to favor her and now she has no feathers left on her back. His spurs have been cut, so he’s not hurting her, yet. But with no feather protection from his feet, I’m sure it won’t be long until she gets injured. I know that there are ‘saddles’ to put on chickens to keep their feathers from falling out, but that seems like a bit much for a hen to wear 24/7. What do you all do?

Fezzik (the gentle giant Ameraucana Rooster, 8 months old) Isn’t he lovely?

Buttercup (the Buff Orpington Hen, 10 months old)

Rosie (the 4 month old Welsummer, dark egg layer)

So, we are back up to 8 hens, and have 2 roosters now. They are all getting along wonderfully! (Oh, well, that’s mostly because we gave cranky Honey to my brother-in-law after she pecked a nasty wound into Sparkle’s (our baby silkie) neck. She just doesn’t like little ones and if we are going to hatch our own chicks in the Spring, we can’t deal with cranky ladies.) The two roosters are just fine with each other. The Ameraucana is definitely the head honcho, even after just one day. The little silkie rooster is so laid back, he doesn’t care. Though our silkie would crow at 7:15 am on the dot every day and that was it. He was very kind to let us sleep in. Fezzik, on the other hand, began crowing at 5:45am this morning and again a little after 6am (what is he thinking???), again at 10:30 and 1pm…. I don’t think he cares about the sun, he just likes to show off his great crow.

They are so much fun to watch!

We’ve added some ladies to our chicken family… two silkie pullets. One is white (“Snowflake) and probably about 3 months old. The other is blue (I think) and ~2 months old; her name is “Rainbow Sparkle” but Kaia has agreed that it is ok if we just call her Sparkle. They are total sweeties! Sparkle likes to be held and petted. She was getting really picked on by Honey, one of our older Ameraucanas, so we had to separate the new little ones from the rest. Hopefully just for a little while.

Oh, and on an egg note, we got our first egg in months, finally! The old girls are finishing up their molt and the new ones hadn’t started laying yet. But, Vera, our Faverolle, laid her first egg today! Yay!

I love their blue ears!

Yesterday morning, as I was getting Kaia up for school, I thought I heard an odd sound coming from outside. We all stopped dead in our tracks and waited patiently to hear it again…. and there it was, loud and clear… ‘cock-a-doodle-do’. Now, if Crowy were still alive, we wouldn’t have thought this odd. But, since all we have is 6 hens, we were a bit surprised! I ran to the window and looked out to the chicken area to see Poodle Noodle, our little black silkie, puff up his chest, stretch his neck and crow a lovely crow. I had gotten Poodle Noodle because silkie hens are supposed to be fantastic moms…. looks like I need to get him a girlfriend

Our rooster died. We nursed him for 2 days but he just never got better. The last day he was having breathing difficulty, too. So, we’ve buried him and put the 6 hens on garlic and other herbs to be sure they don’t catch anything if it was contagious. If all seems well in 3-4 weeks, I may get another ameraucana rooster…. or I may get some hatching eggs this spring and try my hand at it. I’d love to have Marans (that lay chocolate brown eggs) and another Speckled Sussex and Buff Orpington (we had some of these breeds initially and they were killed. But, they were really sweet and good layers!)….

After losing two chickens, I’m wondering how strict you all are about cleanliness of your coops…. do you change shoes when ever you go in? Do you let other people, who have chickens. visit with your chickens? Etc…

I don’t know what’s wrong with him…. he has the same symptoms as the chicken who died a month ago: lethargy and clear/white diarrhea… but otherwise nothing notable, no discharge, no smells, nothing. So, I brought him inside and made him a warm nest. Every hour I’ve been giving him a little bit of garlic, molasses, cream and water mixed. I also put a few drops of an herbal tincture on his skin. Each time I go in he seems a little more alert and lively, but still sitting down and resting mostly, with his eyes closed. Just now I rubbed an oil similar to this one on his head, nose, and under his wings. We’ll let him sleep for the night and hope things are looking up in the morning.

Things are going mostly well with the new chickens. The 3 older ladies are slowly adjusting to having new chickens in their space. They still don’t mingle at all, and the younger ones often get chased away from the food if the old ladies are eating. I found one of the sussex pullets dead 2 days ago. There was no sign of a fight or disease. We think she might have tried to get on the roost and been pushed off and broke her neck. Creepy thing is that she was the one chicken that hadn’t been named yet.

Anyone know how to get them to go in the chicken house at night? The one sussex left has started going in and roosting on the edge of the laying boxes, but the other 4 insist on sitting on a log outside, even if it’s pouring rain! I have to figure out a way to get them to go in at night before it gets too cold, and just for their safety. I may just put them in there 5 or 6 nights in a row and close the coop up so they can’t jump back out.

I don’t know what else to do! About a month ago, with in a week, two of our chickens disappeared. First it was Ralph, so I thought that maybe she had gone broody again and was just laying on a clutch somewhere. But then Spike disappeared. I had a weird feeling that it was one of our neighbors, so Kaia and I went for a little hike down the valley. Suki came with us and ran ahead. She came back up from his house with Spike’s wing and dropped it at my feet. Then we found some feathers. I think one of his dogs came up on the property and got them. So, the four chickens left were put in the coop area and were no longer free range. But, today Faye was killed. From what we can tell, a dog pulled her head through the fencing and took it off. It tried to dig a whole under the coop, but didn’t get all the way in. Now I don’t know what to do! I’ve never seen them up here. Usually Suki keeps them off the property. But she comes inside now and then to cool off when it’s hot, and we don’t hear a thing. We may need to move the coop to the front of the house area, but I really don’t want to have to go through all that trouble if there is another solution. Electrify the fence??? We’re down to three chickens!

OK my chicken friends…

So , I need to throw some seed down on the dirt yard, but I’m thinking the chickens are going to be having a field day with that. Any advice? They don’t stay in their coop even if I close them in (I have crazy jumping chickens!).

I was also wondering what to do when I plant my garden. I really don’t want to have to fence the whole thing in, but won’t they eat up the seeds and seedlings? I seem to remember some of you have free range chickens that have access to your gardens. How does that work?

Thanks for any advice!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted pictures of our chickens, and since they have molted and gotten their new feathers (and are looking so pretty), I thought I’d show them off.

This is all of them (L to R): Ralph (Black Australorp), Faye (Speckled Sussex), Rudy (in the back is another Black Australorp), Spike (Buff Orpington), Honey and Sweetie (Americaunas).

Faye probably has my favorite feather patterns on her. I just think she is beautiful! (That’s Honey, the Americauna, next to her). Faye is the chicken that survived Suki’s (the dog’s) attempt to carry her to the front porch so we would know she had gotten out of her coop.  Now they are completely free range, but they still lay in their laying boxes since that is where they learned to lay their eggs.  They also put themselves to bed every night!  Very easy chickens!!

So a month or so back we had a pink egg in our bunch (did I mention this?).  I thought that maybe one of the chickens may have just started laying a little late.  But, since then, nothing.  So, I figured it was just an egg without as much pigment.  Well, yesterday we got another pink egg!  Today, I went looking in the boxes and we has 2 blue and 3 dark brown.  I left them all in there to see if we could actually have a 6 egg day (never had all the chickens lay in one day yet).  Lo and behold, Faye jumps up in there and lays another pink egg!  So, it looks like I have found the culprit.  Faye is a pink egg layer and has only layed 3 eggs so far!  I wonder if she just got a really late start and is finally getting going because of the warm weather.  What ever it is, I really like the color of the eggs!!