Attack of the Broodies

So, I thought I wouldn't post until I had a chance to edit and post more photos.  But I need to post about this.  Two of my silver laced wyandottes want to be mamas.  Arlene more than Go-Go but I can see Go-Go getting this bad.  So when a chicken wants to be a mama she sits on her nest and waits and waits and if you approach her, she raises all of her feathers and shrieks bloody murder. 

This is what it looks like:

It's not pleasant.  I've been bitten several times today because my hen, Arlene is trying to brood an empty nest.  She didn't even lay a fricking egg today.  Only two of my girls did... and on such a beautiful day... how odd. 

Why couldn't she have been broody two months ago, you know, for the chicks I have now!  I don't have fertile eggs to give her if I wanted to.  I would love to let her go broody and sneak a couple chicks under her but... I don't really have the room at this point.

Worries

I went to the states for a few days... My husband's mother's family is from the US.  Masachussettes is where we were exactly.  My husband's grandfather died.  The funeral was beautiful.  His grandfather was a police officer for 30 years so it was police escorted, he was also a WWII vet so there was this lovely American flag ceremony at the graveyard.  I loved meeting his family, everyone had neat accents.  His grandmother was such a doll.  I loved it there but we didn't get to sight see much.  I will post some photos once I finish editing from my Saturday shoot.

I will however show you guys what I plan on making this weekend!

http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=27127-a-classy-a-frame-tractor

It's for the chicks!  They are huge and feathered!  They are in Belle's old crate, hanging out :)  I took Elle and Vincent outside today.  Vincent is such a little rooster already!  I was soooo worried while we were in the states.  As busy as we were, I was terrified for what I would find when I got home.  I came home to a happy group of chickens and chicks!  So wish me luck with the tractor and I'll post photos as soon as I can!

Gender confusion

Ever since I got rid of Bill, we've had some confusion.  The flock needed direction and Alabama seems to have taken on roll of leader.  However Alabama has confused me with a giant rooster.  You see, now that Bill is gone, she crouches when she sees me as if I am a rooster waiting to mate with her.  Except this morning.  I've been separating BB due to egg eating again (which is starting to drive me insane).  After she lays her egg in Belle's old dog crate, I let her out to free range with the others.  I picked her up on my way out to let the flock out and sat her down when I opened the door.  I led them over to my shed and started to feed them.  When I had my back turned, I heard flapping sounds.  I turned around and there is Alabama, on top of BB... mating with her... well... as best a hen can mate another hen! 

What kind of gender confused chicken is this?!  I'm going to have to make sure she doesn't get too rooster like, or I'll need to put chicken saddles on everyone!  And now what am I going to do when Vincent is introduced as the rooster.  What's going to happen then?  The chicks are getting huge.  Elle is nothing but feathers but some still have fuzz and feathers.  Elle is my favourite and I'm not afraid to admit that.  She was the first I saw hatch, she loves being picked up and going for little adventures outside.  She tries desperately to get away from me and join the other chickens but they don't understand what she is.  BB came over and stole some of her food, which was a good thing because it showed Elle where to peck... but then she pecked Elle!  She got swatted away after that. 

Zoe and Arlene still have their saddles on, they look so cute but it's more because Zoe has new skin and no feathers on it and I need to protect that.  Arlene is still healing but her wound is all closed up now.  Chicken skin is very thin and delicate and it can be cut and damaged very easy, so she needs something to cover it if she doesn't have feathers. 

So long for now :)

How the babies are doing!

My chicks are thriving!  I have yet to edit some photos I took of them because I haven't been on top of my editing.  They have little feathers now!  They started on their wings and are now sprouting out of all kinds of random spots... so they are really awkward looking.  They still have down and they have teeny tiny feathers so it's an interesting combo.  My first born (haha now I sound like a crazy chicken lady), Elle is the most awkward of all.  Her head has almost microscopic feathers on it mixed with down which gives her the appearance of having over gelled, teenage boy hair from 1999.  You remember that right?

I just gave them a treat of scrambled eggs.  A lot of people ask me about this, they think it's kind of like canabalism.  Here is the thing, a chick gets all of it's nutrients from the yolk while in the egg becoming an adorable fluffy chick.  So all of those nutrients are still great for them when they get older!  I found myself with two dozen eggs in the fridge and wasn't sure what to do so I whipped a few up, gave them to my hens first and then my chicks.  My hens scarfed them down in about 3 seconds flat.  My chicks are still kind of special... they grab bits of egg and instead of eating it they run around chirping happily or maniacly, not sure which as of yet, and then find a corner to try to eat it.  But by chirping they have now drawn attention to themselves and someone will usually come over and steal their bit of egg.  When I hold the little dish out for them sometimes they go completely insane and jump on my arm and hand or on the dish and try to take all the egg for themselves instead of sharing with each other.  They also adore cheerios like their older counterparts.  Not so fond of grapes though, neither are the older ones.  Birds of a feather eh..?

Now on the subject of Bill.  Bill was given away to Circle Pond Farms in Chester where I got him as a chick with his siblings.  Their two young roosters were duds when it came to fertilizing eggs and as we all know, Bill is the king of that, so he will spend his days getting as much chicken nookie as he can handle and will produce adorable Rhode Island Red chicks for all!  :D  Vincent will stay with my flock and we'll see how he does as a rooster!  I got the chicken saddles in the mail anyway, so I was able to put those on my two injured hens and let them back out in the yard.  I need to post photos later because they look super cute.  I'll be posting a link to the shop I got them from at the bottom of the blog.  My husband put a pink one on my cat and hilarity ensued.  I spit out my tea because I laughed so hard.  If you dress a cat apparently it slinks around the house in a ridiculous manner.

The chicks just started trying to dustbath when I checked on them.  That isn't good.  Dustbathing in poop and shavings isn't going to get them anywhere haha.

Discoveries

What a day...  It's so dreary out, it's dark and grey, raining and windy.  Classic weather for this area.  I was so pleased that it was decently warm out and that my hens were happily scratching around in the yard.  I went outside and checked for eggs and was so happy when I had two this morning.  I went back out in the afternoon to check for more and I almost died.  There in the nest sat Zoe... she was drenched from the rain and because of that I could see she had been injured several times by my rooster.  Her back is bare now, she has gouges and scabs in several places, some that look extremely deep.  I ran back inside to get Matthew.  When I came back out she was gone.  I watched her for a bit then coaxed the whole flock to come over to my woodhouse for a treat (bananas and of course... Cheerios).  I coaxed them right over to me and snatched up Zoe before Bill could even react.  She is now in Belle's old dog kennel (so glad I didn't sell it or chuck it), it's filled with clean straw and she has food and milk.  When I picked her up and saw the damage I started bawling.  I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed this.  It hadn't rained in so long I never saw any of these wounds.  My poor girls have been so severely overmated that almost all of them are missing feathers in spots.

I'm getting rid of Bill.  He's going to be given away as soon as possible.  I can't have him doing this to my girls.  There are too few of them clearly because they are waaaaay overmated.  I like watching Bill in the yard, he's interesting, he keeps the girls away from hawks, he hides them from danger, I like that.  But I can't have him around if this is what is going to happen.

To top all of this off I think my kitten is sick, he pooped on the floor twice last night while I was sleeping.  He stinks and so does my kitchen even after cleaning it all up.  My parents dog, my childhood dog is probably going to be put down on Monday.  What a frigging day...  at least my chicks are okay.  I've been reading about some horror stories that went on with people on the backyardchickens forum and I'm glad to say that mine are thriving.  They just had a treat today, bananas for the first time and boy did they LOVE them.  I tried grapes last and they really didn't like those much.  But the bananas, it was like a party in there.

Giacomo is crying his head off.  I feel like it's a bloody zoo in here.  My friend is coming over for wine later thankfully.  First though I will have to clean up Zoe even if she is here...

PS:  BB is doing excellent.  Her eggs still look flat and ridiculous but my lovely lady left the egg be!  She didn't eat it or peck it!  Way to go BB!

Mostly pictures

My means of breaking BB's egg eating habit are so far diet (more calcium) and scolding and swatting her if she pecks an egg.  A lot of people think you might not be able to get through to a chicken this way but they are actually quite intelligent.  They were the first animals to be trained with a clicker.  I am thinking if things get real desperate, I might try to add clicker training.  Maybe like... she pecks the egg she gets swatted.  She leaves the egg, she gets a treat and a click.  That might work.  Yeah I probably sound absolutely insane but I'm a little desperate. 

Here's what you're all looking for though.

 All different shades.  If you have Aracuanas you can get blue, green and lavender coloured eggs.  Matthew had a few of those once.  My Rhodies lay brown and my SLWs lay beige.

 Stripes on the back like this mean these little ones are female!

 Macky, my husband's favourite and the runt of the bunch, stretching her little legs!  She is also in a teacup!

 This handsome fellow is Vincent.  He already thinks he is cock of the walk :)

On the subject of egg eating

First off, I had an extremely successful hatch rate. 6/8 is really good!  I am so surprised by this that I actually don't know what to do with them now. So if anyone would like a trio (two hens and a roo), then let me know!  I'll raise them up for you and you can have them for the low low price of $30!  Anywho, I have five girls and one boy!  I named the little guy Vincent and I know I can't keep him... well unless Bill does something particularly bad, then he can certainly be replaced, but I have to tell you, Vincent is the cutest chick out of all of them.  Though my husband would disagree, he thinks our newest one Macky is the cutest.  She was stuck in her egg and needed a lot of help.  I tried "zipping" the egg for her but by the time I intervened she was too tired to do anything.  Matthew then basically hatched half of her egg off.  The next day she managed to get out of the rest of the egg but she still had membrane stuck to her down.  So I had to soak that off of her.  It took her another two days to actually dry off completely.  She is such a runt but then again she and the oldest hatched basically four days apart.  My oldest, Elle, already has tiny feathers on her wings! 

I will post some new photos of everyone tomorrow.  I took some this evening and I have a little photo shoot planned for them tomorrow.  Gotta keep up with my 365 photo challenge, I am a photographer and not a farmer after all.  So yes, on to the subject of egg eating.   Well my special chicken... BB, as you know has had some struggles.  She is at the bottom of the pecking order and was a late bloomer.  She finally started laying eggs and I was so pleased.  But then she started eating them. :(  This is terrible.  It is almost impossible to break a chicken of this habit and they will teach it to the other hens and even the rooster.  I separated BB immediately and I prayed that the behavior hasn't caught on.  I don't think it has because I have seen no evidence of more egg eating.  Because she is new to egg laying, I have to wait for her to lay another to see exactly what is happening.  But I know she is the culprit.  I was told to give her a blown egg full of mustard, apparently chickens hate it.  I brought it out to her and she immediately started pecking at it.  She got to the mustard and loved it.  She gobbled down half of it.  I was stunned.  She even sounded like she burped when she was finished.

So I guess filling the eggs with things isn't going to work.  I had some people tell me that they scolded their chickens when they pecked the eggs.  I don't want BB to hate me, she is my fav and lets me carry her around and stuff... but maybe I can scold her and shoo her away from the eggs.  I'm also changing her diet up.  I think she didn't realize the oyster shells I put out were food... they are full of calcium and chickens will often eat their own eggs if they don't have enough calcium.  So it's down to trying to turn the behaviour around with praise and scoldings and with nutrition. 

Wish me luck.. I don't know what I'll do if I can't turn this around.  I don't want to clip her beak, I think it's cruel and I don't want to cull her either... ugh.