The Chicks meet the Captain

The babies finally got their first taste of the great outdoors, though they remained enclosed for their own safety. It also gave me a chance to give the brooder a good clean out without chicks escaping and running amok inside.

They seemed to enjoy being out but the most interesting thing to them seemed to be a visit from some of the older chickens, namely Captain Hook.  It was another interesting view into chicken behavior.
Captain Hook circled the enclosure several times looking for a way in or a way to get the chicks out.  He seemed ready to have them join the flock and the chicks were fascinated by him.  When he was unable to get to them directly he started showing them how to scratch and peck at the ground and even tried feeding them grass through the holes in the fence!  I was under the impression that as a rooster he would have little interest in them but here the Captain was showing off some fine fathering skills. I realized later that I should have taken video instead of still pictures-Doh!

New Brooder Box

As you can imagine our chicks are growing like weeds.  They are no longer tiny little fluffy  butts but already have real feathers and are starting to looks gangly and awkward.  The plastic bin that was the original brooder was quickly getting crowded so Dom and I decided a regular brooder was needed.  Lucky for us we already had most of the materials on hand and within an afternoon we had a new home for the chicks complete with little roosts for them to perch on.

 

They are big enough now that every time I open the top someone tries to escape....

 

They will soon be having their first adventure outside now that the weather has warmed up.

Candling Day!

Yesterday was day 10 for the eggs I put in the incubator so it was candling day. First thing we did was to take an egg that we had just gotten from the coop and knew there was nothing growing inside to candle so we would know what an egg looked like that wasn't growing.  Then we began the process of candling the eggs in the incubator. It was really neat to see the eggs with the little developing embryos inside.  5 of the 6 six eggs we checked had definite development.  I am not sure who was more excited, Kenzie or me!  If everything continues to go well we will have 5 chicks hatching in 11 days!
The pictures didn't come out that great. If you look closely you can see the darker portion is the embryo with some spidery veins around it.  This particular embryo was moving around a lot!

 

Hatching Ideas

We are starting another chapter in our chicken raising or I should say I am.   This whole idea was instigated by my dad and since I am really enjoying raising chickens I was game. Hubby is not really on board with this new adventure.
Hubby is in fact waiting for me to get over my chicken phase. This isn't happening any time soon especially now that I've decided to hatch some eggs to sell the chicks.  I guess he has reason to be nervous.  I think he is pretty convinced that we will hatch a bunch of chicks and end up keeping them all which would mean building another coop to house the all.  I am a little nervous about the whole scenario, but I am excited too.  My fears are more along the lines of what if we hatch all  roosters? Not likely but half could be.  
As you can imagine roosters aren't as popular as hens and therefore harder to get rid of.  They don't lay eggs, they are noisier and they can be mean and extremely aggressive. Some town ordinances don't even allow roosters.  We have been lucky that the two roosters we have are very  friendly. Kenzie can walk right over and pick them up.  They also get along with each other for the most part.  They might circle each other with their hackles raised but there really is no actual fighting.  I think this is largley do in part to the fact that Joel is very passive and is content in letting Captain Hook be in charge.

Since I have never hatched eggs or used an incubator before I have chosen to just try six eggs to get a feel for the whole procedure.
I pulled out all my chicken books and read the chapters on hatching eggs.
Then I read them again.
I scanned the internets absorbing all the info I could get on using a incubator to hatch chicks.  Then I realized maybe it would just be easier to have a hen go broody and do what nature intended. This was a good plan but unfortunately the mothering instinct has been almost entirely bred out of domestic poultry in favor of egg production and I might never have a hen that decides she wants to be a mommy. So back to the incubator with its less than helpful directions and back to doing a little more reading just to be sure I was doing everything the best I could.
 I got the incubator all set up with the humidity and temperatures at the correct levels-temperature 100.0 degrees and humidity 55%.
Next I picked six eggs.  I picked lighter brown ones so that they would be easier to candle since this would be my first experience. And I also made sure they weren't oddly shaped or overly large or small. Into the incubator they went, set small end down into the automatic egg turner.

In ten days I will be able to candle the eggs to look for signs of development.  Candling the eggs is kind of like a chicken ultra-sound.  In a darkened room you hold a candler or bright flashlight or lightbulb up to the eggs to look for signs the egg is fertilized and a chick is starting to form. A fertilized egg should show a dark spot(the embryo) with spidery veins around it.  With two roosters and 12 hens our chances of fertilized eggs are should be high.  If you do not candle the eggs and leave an egg in the incubator that isn't fertilized it will rot and quite possibly explode.  Cleaning up rotten egg is not something I want to deal with!  Not only would the smell be horrific it could endanger the other developing eggs.
I will be monitoring the temperature and the humidity in the incubator to make sure that it remains consistent and keep my fingers crossed that we have a succesful hatch. I'll be posting updates as we progress!

Free Range

Now that we have finally had some significant snow melt I have been able to let the chickens out to free range.  The first free ranging experience was interesting to observe.  I started by just opening the gate and leaving them to their own devices.  No one discovered the open gate or they were choosing to ignore it. Evenually a few hens found their way out but this sent Captain Hook (the dominant rooster) into a tizzy when he realized they were on the other side of the fence. Kenzie went into the run and attempted to shoo everyone out.  For what ever reason they would reach the gate and  run back in the opposite direction.  Kenzie was able to grab Captain Hook and put him outside the gate in the hopes the rest of the flock would follow.  They tried but not being terribly smart they paced up and down the gate trying to get to Captain Hook while he did the same on the outside. Kenzie eventually got a few more out but this is also where it got interesting to watch.  Captain Hook started going up to each hen(he still on the outside of the fence and the hens inside)then he would "talk"to each hen and lead them around to the open gate. With a bit of teamwork between Kenzie and Captain Hook the whole flock made it out into the yard. 
The flock stuck pretty close togther except for the old ladies.  The old ladies are my two original hens and the only two that aren't australorps.  These two were used to roaming the yard together and thats exactly what they did.  This of course upset Captain Hook  who continually sqwaked at them to try to get them to come back to the rest of the flock and they kinda of ignored him.
While Captain Hook was proving himself to be a competent leader of the flock, Joel, our other rooster was proving that he probably should have been born a hen.  Joel is actually prettier then Captain Hook and his plummage is more impressive,  Captain Hook is so named because he has two crooked toes and his plummage is floppier than Joel but other than that he is what I want in a rooster, he is not aggressive towards humans-so far-and he is taking good care of the girls.

As the snow continues to melt and the days get warmer the flock will get to spend more time out in the yard and hopefully learn where the gate is!

 

 

It's Finally Spring

It's finally spring here but you can't tell from looking outside.  Fourteen inches of freshly fallen snow currently grace the yard. Our whole family is pretty much done seeing the fluffy white stuff and that goes for the chickens too!  Our chickens hate snow, actully I believe most chickens hate snow.  Their scrawny little feet aren't really made for snow.  I open the coop door everyday knowing this (unless it is really cold) and they all scramble out the door. Then the first few notice the evil white stuff covering the ground and a fourteen chicken pileup on the off ramp ensues.  Wings flap, feathers fly and the quiet morning air is filled with a chorus of excited squawking as they all scramble back inside. This is extremely amusing. Inevitably, one of the two roosters sticks his head out the door and gives me a dirty look as if to say 'how dare you upset my girls?'

I do try to at least keep the snow packed down and that part of the yard gets lot of sun so it doesn't take long for the snow to melt now that the days are getting longer.  The nights have dropped below zero this week though, which means we don't get the around the clock melting that we normally would this time of year.  It won't be long though before it all melts though, right??