A few chicken videos for your amusement

1. The helicopter noise. I love this sound. Princess makes it when she's fussy with us for changing the coop around. The other chickens kind of whine. Also, chickens eat anything (here, it's pine shavings). It's impressive.

2. Smacky-lips drinking.

Snow chickens!

Sadly it seems a lot of snow had been blowing into the coop. The chickens were not at all pleased about this, and were quite squawky when I took away the bucket they had been standing on. (On really cold days we take out a bucket full of hot water for a little extra heat. Otherwise they tend to just pile on top of each other - impressive when they're all sitting on the roost.) I added a bit more straw and E suggested some plastic over the window and door, so they should be nice and dry for now.

A pretty egg

Surprisingly the chickens (with the exception of the Chairman) have continued to lay through winter. Today's haul included a nice speckled one. Curious what causes the speckles - usually there are only a couple; the lovely egg below is unusual for our chickens.

Catching up, part III: The chickens take a walk

Princess came to us with a clipped wing, and in an effort to give her a break from the other chickens, we let her wander around the back yard on occasion. Almost immediately she jumped up into the other garden bed and began rolling about in the dirt. As this was revoltingly adorable, and she seemed to be enjoying the experience, we decided the other chickens should be allowed the same privilege. We inexpertly clipped the chickens' wings (just the primary flight feathers, nothing awful), and unceremoniously tossed them out into the great wide backyard.

Not only was this a field trip for the chickens (who occasionally enjoy a little walkabout every couple weeks or so -- at least while we don't have a productive garden), E got to try out his bird handling skills. Bizarrely enough, if you hold a bird upside down by its feet, it completely freezes. Then again, these are also animals that are immediately fooled into immobility when you cover their heads too, so perhaps it's not so surprising after all.

Catching up, part I: Princess

It has been blissfully quiet with the Colonel gone. Sure, we hear the occasional egg song bright and early at 7:30 a.m. on otherwise peaceful Saturday mornings, but no more chicken screaming "I'm gonna mess you bitches up if you come near my coop". Truly a lovely thing. So, logical time to introduce the Colonel's replacement: Princess.

Princess, as you can see here, is missing most of her beak. Debeaking is a disgusting practice, and done to keep chickens from pecking each other to death in atrocious conditions (she was bought at auction and this had been done much earlier, so sadly we couldn't prevent it). Unfortunately, this left Princess unable to defend herself against the comb tweaking and feather pulling that occurred upon her introduction to our small flock. She earned her name, in fact, because 1) she is so ugly (and was more so all mangy), and 2) she required a lot of individual care: as the other chickens were picking on her, she had to be in the coop alone to eat and drink, requiring at least twice daily herding of the other chickens out of the coop and close attention in general.

E and I found the pecking order battles unpleasant, and in a fit of productivity I built a divider for the run. Better all the chickens be a little crowded and the Princess have a little quiet time than we be stuck with a sad, mangy chicken that required us to actually do stuff.





The divider was promising - Princess enjoyed her space and was eating and drinking well. However, the morning after she received her own little space, the divider failed. Mostly. When we came out to check on her, we found both the Chairman and Matzoh Ball hanging out on Princess' side. Apparently they dug a little hole under the fence and squeezed under. The fence was, however, totally successful in keeping Pol Pot out, who was too big to fit under the hole. Poor Pol Pot sat on the other side of the fence jealously watching the other chickens. Poor fat girl. This more or less ended the isolation phase.











After about a week and a half, Princess got up the courage to leave the coop, and since then has been behaving more or less normally. The Colonel was our best layer (not a big surprise since she was a production bird), but Princess easily surpasses the Colonel, her eggs being gigantic (barely fitting in an egg carton) and constant - at least 5 a week. All in all, we made out in this trade, I think.

The Colonel Gets the Axe

Okay, maybe just figuratively, but it was a near thing. The Colonel decided she was a gender-bending chicken and while that's all well and good, the rooster-like behaviors and aggressiveness were definitely not. It was cute when the Colonel got up in our faces when we went into the pen, it was even cute how she zipped around to always be in front of us (and by extension the camera, photos below). It was not cute when she began crowing in the morning and whenever we went outside. Crowing? Yeah, crowing. At the very least it was some awful chicken equivalent that made us want to put her out of our misery. Keep in mind, these are secret chickens. Secret chickens cannot be crowing. If she had not been genetically guaranteed to be female and was not laying eggs, I would have questioned her sex.

When we could take it no longer, our not-so-secret transgendered chicken went to live on a nice farm. No, really! Most generously, Aunt Deb allowed us to trade the Colonel for one of her chickens. (Thanks again, Aunt Deb!) As soon as the Colonel hit the ground at Aunt Deb's she immediately assumed rooster posture and began jumping on all the other chickens' backs, ripping out their feathers, and making a general pest of herself. The Colonel, I'm afraid, is a nasty, domineering bitch. Now at least, she is a nasty, domineering bitch somewhere else. In her place we took home Princess, who may be the ugliest chicken in creation, but is a sweet, gentle, and quiet chicken that lays the biggest eggs I've ever seen (pictures to follow eventually). And so, Colonel, so long and good riddance.

More eggs!

This morning Eric went out to collect our more or less daily egg and found an unexpected egg sitting out in the run. The second egg was lighter than those we've been getting (the new egg is on the right in the photo, from the old batch on the left), and it's unlikely The Colonel was in double-time laying mode anyway, so it's almost certainly another chicken. Given her odd posture yesterday, I'm guessing it was the Pol Pot chicken. It was certainly the Colonel bitch-chicken that pecked and broke this new egg when Eric took it out of the run. Jerk. Sadly we had to throw it away. Hopefully that was a one time thing. Next addition to the coop: laying boxes! (And, if we're particularly industrious, the roost needs to be moved, or a lower one added.)

Chicken moving day

We talked for a really long time about what kind of coop we wanted, and looked at a bunch of books and designs online. As our space was fairly limited (therefore no converted sheds) and we didn't want to spend a fortune (and it's nearly impossible to find a cute coop for under $500), Eric built us one. I threw together a design we sort of used at work, and it more or less worked. We had to leave the bumped out egg boxes off since that wall was meant to be removable and they would be too heavy, and the flower boxes haven't been added yet, but it's fantastic - Eric did a really phenomenal job. I love the cedar shingles, and the hinged roof is incredibly convenient. We also did a single door that drops down to form a ramp, and that has been working really well. As the run is totally enclosed (wood frames and hardware cloth) and there's an overhanging roof, we can leave the coop open all the time - important given our laziness and the absolutely miniscule probability we would wake up to let the chickies out. Eventually I'll add the flower boxes and perhaps the Phyllis Diller photo. Sooner, though, we'll be installing nesting boxes and a small cut-out on the removable wall for easier egg retrieval.

After 10 weeks - maybe more - we finally got the jerks out of the house. In some perfectly logical way, we decided to do this late at night. Really, after weeks of trying to get the coop together and finally being more or less ready, it had to be done. Eric and I both took turns bringing them out. Some behaved better than others. Matzoh ball in particular was awful; the screeching, flapping, and wriggling was a little intimidating. I ended up covering up her head and running through the house - a strategy that seemed to work pretty well. Once we got them into the coop, the chickens were absolutely silent, like we had killed them. It was actually a little unnerving. But, the monsters settled in fairly quickly. After two or three days we finished the run, and they were free to explore the far reaches of their 3' x 10' run.

And now, without further adieu, the chickens

We ordered our chickens from My Pet Chicken in early February, expecting delivery the first week of April. Thinking we were super smarties, we ordered 6 chicks, assuming some would die in shipping, and perhaps one or two would end up being male. On April 1st, a postal worker came to the door with a madly chirping box. Hysterical. She was slightly confused, but cracking up, and I was jumping up and down like some kind of moron. I finished setting up the brooder (only the best for our girls), and Eric came home at lunch for the big release. (While waiting for Eric I was using the computer in the basement for a while, and the chicks were so loud I could hear them chirping all the way down there. Thankfully, they shut up after a while.) So, Eric came home, and we opened up the box, found all of the chicks alive, and transferred them to the brooder. (For the record, the chickens were all born March 30, 2009.)

We had ordered one red sex link, one silver laced wyandotte, one easter egger, one barred rock, and two australorps. The Colonel (the red sex link, closeup at left) soon showed herself to be a bitch-chicken, the most aggressive and territorial of all of them and earned her name within the first few weeks. The Chairman (also at left) seemed to be second in command, and was breifly called "Ducky" which was later replaced by her current name. Interestingly, she was a hulking beast of a chick - by far the largest - and has actually ended up the smallest of the adult chickens.

At right are the chicks at 4 weeks - they had begun to feather out pretty well by this point, and were happily roosting in their brooder (from left to right: the Chairman, the SLW Matzoh Ball, the Barred Rock Pol Pot Pie, and the Colonel; underneath: the two australorps we later gave away). As it turns out, they had feathered out enough to fly a little, which of course wasn't obvious until one escaped (below). Covering the brooder with chicken wire was an easy fix. This, however, did not stop the incessant wing flapping that later caused the entire office to be covered in a super-fine pine shaving dust.

By 6-7 weeks (below) the monsters were getting filthy, the office was covered in dust, and we were really looking forward to getting them the hell out of the house.