Chickens

 Well, we are down to 5 chickens. They are:

• rooster - speckles
• twins - 2 grey hens that hang around with speckles
• henrietta - hen that came with us from port orchard
• white hen - semi feral, hangs around with other chickens sometimes, but sleeps in trees

Well, Q just found the little white hen with 6 chicks under the HF trailer. I am not going to try to catch them and move them to the coop, that would just stress them out and would be futile since they are in long grass and I don't want to step on them. So we'll leave them be, and see what happens. But I did put water and chick starter food out for them.

New chicks and a roo

Picked up 4 assorted chicks last night and a 4 moth old americana rooster last night from a FB community buy/sell site.
We snuck the chicks under the sitting hens at 2200 last night and put the rooster into the coop in the cat cage with the door open. He's up and exploring today, his crow is small and squeaky, its funny to hear it.

Updates...

So the local wildlife have been busy, we are down to 5 chickens, though I think there might be one that is roosting accross the street in the trees. I count 6 chickens every so often.

Allergies are starting back up, ugh. I hate this time of year.

Cleared out the bee yard, might see if I can get a nuk hive from that lady in Roy, WA.

All at home due to Covid-19.

That is all.

Current chicken count ... 10

So I counted the chickens yesterday, we are missing Steve and a chick and one of the teenagers... Someone has been busy.. Time to take it up with the local raccoon population..

I installed an automated chicken door yesterday made by RentACoop. We'll see how it works.

Chicken update

Well, some sad news this week.
One of the chicks disappeared a few days ago. They are about cornish game hen size and something grabbed one..

A raccoon attacked and severely injured the rooster last Monday night. He has been going downhill since then, stopped eating/drinking 2 days ago and was laying under the coop all night last night. I just went out and put him down, he was suffering so much and barely alive.
Good bye Steve the rooster!

More chickens

The 6 chicks survived to their teens and should be laying eggs soon.
And then Momma Moran hatched out 3 more chicks, which are about 6" tall now.
I'm gonna need a larger coop.

Damn 'yotes

Well, just had to interrupt a meeting to go chase of at least one coyote. It was out front chasing the chickens and chicks. I think there were 2 of them and that they got momma moran which is a shame since she's the one reliable enough to raise chicks.. Damn! I counted the rest of the chickens/chicks and she's missing.. I saw a coyote jumping on her while she was in the air, but they went out of view before I could see if the was taken. Then a coyote ran from around the house to the front woods. Not sure if it was the same one, might have had 2 working together.
Time to keep a rifle handy.


Update: Momma Moran survived.

2 down

5/27:  I took out a raccoon last night. damn thing came around at 6 before the chickens were in bed and was chasing the chickens and chicks around when Q heard it and told us. I went out screaming like a berserker with a baseball
 bat and scared it away.

I hung around outside until the chickens and chicks calmed down, then we watched them to make sure they all went inside which they did. I closed up the coop and we relaxes. We did not loose any of the 5 chicks.

And the raccoon came back, it sat there eating spilled chicken feed for an hr before I quietly walked around the front of the house with the 22 rifle. It saw me as I was lining up my shot and took off up the tree. I was able to get a head-shot and it fell down out of the tree and I finished it off with another head-shot. Unfortunately it was a bloody mess so we decided not to skin it. It was a young female.

We'll see if we get any more that brazen. I setup the leg trap to see if I can get another.


5/29: Went out to release the chickens and they were making a lot of stress noises in the coop, the leg trap got a raccoon. I grabbed the 22 rifle again, lined it up on the head between the eyes and shot it. It died quickly and I took it off to the woods. It was a large female with extended nipples, so it probably has a litter of kits (?).

 I'm not happy killing females, but I'm also not happy having them drag my chickens away and eating them. Law of the jungle.

Woohoo

I am glad to post that all of the original 5 chicks made it into the coop last night w/o having to be chased down.

Now I just need to help the late coming 5th chick learn how to go up the ramp...

New chick status

After spending the night in the house on a heating pad, I put the new chick under the hen last night.

Today it seems fine, just not sure how to get down the ramp, so I helped it and mother hen was not too happy about that. Since its a few days behind its siblings, it will need to learn/exercise a lot to build up strength.

There is yet another chick trying to break out of the shell this am, we'll see if it can make it. If it can, I'll bring it inside and put it on a warming pad until its stable enough to go outside.

The Mother hen story.. aka: The Mad hen

So, chickens are smart enough to be chickens, barely...
We have 4 chicks that hatched about the same time, we have a maran hen being mother for them. That is good, she's being a good mom, for the most part..

But we have a problem... The coop sits on 4 concrete pillars to give the chickens a place to sit in shade or out of the rain. This works out well, except when we have chicks.

The ramp going into the coop is 5' long and sticks out at a gentle angle, i staple old towels to it when we have chicks so their can get some grip to walk up it.

The mother tries to show them how to get into the coop, but being a full grown chicken means she just jumps up onto the middle of the ramp and wants in. The chicks, being a lot smaller, cannot jump that high so try, then run back and forth pipping for the mother.

She comes back out, squawks at them to follow her, then jumps back up onto the ramp and goes back inside. They try, cannot, and the process starts over.

So we have to assist, we wait for her to go into the coop, run up and quickly close the door, then we chase the chicks around until we catch them and walk them up the ramp to the partially open door.

Or that is how its supposed to work.

How it really works:
Hen tries to get chicks to go up the ramp, finally gives up and beds down on the ground some place (in a semi protected area) and the chicks are happy, pecking the ground and going under her to stay warm.

1 problem: raccoons..

Raccoons would eat them all and be quite happy..

So we chase the hen around and she gets madder than a ... well.. a mad hen..
I catch her (with gloves and long sleeves on) and throw her into the coop and slam the door closed, now she's making a racket in the coop while we run around catching the terrified chicks...

After we put the 1st chick in she calms down, 1 chick is all she needs to mellow out.
We catch the remaining chicks and put them in there...

So I put walls on the ramp so now its more like a cattle chute..
Sometimes 1 of the chicks goes up the ramp with the hen, so the hen is content and quiet and we just have to go round up the chicks and walk them up the ramp.

I'll be glad when they are big enough so we can stop this silliness...


Catching the hen:

Another chick or two

Well, another egg hatched Thursday, but the chick had wry neck and passed away.
Another one hatched yesterday, we brought it in side since there were no hens in the box to sit on it and keep it warm, we put it in a box with a heating pad and towel, we'll take it out to the coop this evening after dark and see if we can food Miss Pissy Hen the mother into accepting it.


A picture of the 1st 4 chicks. 

Chicks!

We've lost some chickens recently, what we have left are:

• Steve: the rooster.
• Salsa: a hen from the chicks we bought from Cedar.
• Henrietta: One of the original hens from Port Orchard, I call her Henrietta since she's old fashioned puffy bottomed.
• The sitter: One of the 2nd gen of marans

Well, the maran has been sitting and sitting and finally has managed to hatch 3 chicks so far today! We'll see if we get more.
Time to get chick food...

Down to 4 chickens now....

Darn raccoon got another one..
We stayed out late and it came into the coop and took the 2nd rooster..
Alas, we are down to 4 now.
Time to get rid of this raccoon..

Down to 5 chickens

Down to 5 chickens, something got 2 hens and Paul the rooster while I was out of town. Looks like something grabbed them from the coop, pulled them out and finished them off. I found 3 distinct sets of feathers in the chicken yard.

Reviews... for Chicken watering devices

I've tried 2 different types of watering devices that you put into a bucket, the chicken nipple and poultry cups. After over a year of using, I prefer (and the chickens prefer) the poultry cups.

I have 4 of the nipples in the bottom of a bucket, the chickens need to bend their necks up to get to them. Since they are in the air, only nearly full grown chickens can use them, chicks cannot. They make it more of a pain to clean the bucket since they stick up and gouge your hands if you are not careful.

I have 2 of the poultry cups in a bucket sitting on bricks off the ground. Chicks as well as chickens can get to them, I see this being used more often. I'll be adding 2 more cups to the bucket.

I've filled the 2 types of buckets at the same time and the chickens definitely prefer the cups.

I've also noticed that bees will use the poultry cups, I might have to setup a bee watering station for them.


Chicken nipples

Poultry cups

Poor chick

Well, the poor chick died, it was left out of the coop 2 nights ago, the roosters were out late and I did not realize that the chick was out also. So it stayed out all night and I found it dead yesterday evening. The chicks can come out, but don’t know how to go back into the coop w/o me showing them the first time.

Hopefully we'll get more chicks.

Finally! Bloody chickens

There has been a hen sitting on eggs since February, through rain and snow, dark of night, yada yada yada.
I've become disheartened that the main rooster is doing his job of fertilizing eggs.
So I went out yesterday with the intent to add more shavings to the coop and throw away all the eggs so I can mark them and they can start over. I opened up the main door and there were 4 hens all squashed into the nesting box. And a chick! They hatched a chick! I quickly closed the main coop doors to calm them down, then opened up the roof of the nesting box, I saw the chick and a 2nd one that had just hatched, I quickly closed the roof, hopefully they got in there and got the 2nd chick dried out and fluffy. Next weekend I'll add shavings..

Critter status update

The status of the assorted critters around the place.

• Chickens
• Down to 8 chickens
• 2 older roosters, 1 newer rooster
• 1 older hen
• 1 mid hen
• 3 new hens
• Bees
• Still have 2 active hives. I thought I had lost the swarm hive, I popped the top and a mouse had moved in. But I removed the top medium and saw a mass of bees, so I put the spacer on the 2nd box and put the sugar block back above the bees. I evicted the mouse and put an entrance reduce on the hive. I have 6 frames of capped honey to extract now.
• Salmon eggs 
• On day 5, total TU's so far is 672. The eggs need 725 TU's to hatch. Water temp has been around 46, so if the water temperature stays the same, they should hatch around day 9, Feb 1st.

Chicken Update

Well, we're down to 8 chickens. 3 roosters (steve/paul/new one), and 5 hens, 4 of our original 5, and 4 new ones. We lost our broody hens from last year, which is the most irritating thing.

I upgraded the back chicken walls to 4' wire. Hopefully that will help keep the coyotes out of the run. But the chickens still fly over it and go out foraging.
Oh well, we'll see what happens...

Oh and we had a shift in regime. Steve is now the head rooster, Paul is the 2nd. Steve wupped Paul's ass and took the crown.. Its funny seeing Paul off by his self moping...