Spring And Poultry...

Some of my new landscaping has shaken off Winter it seems...

Especially the Cameo Scarlet Quince!

Pretty little things!

Meanwhile, the annual Shearing Of The Chicken Dignity has swooped down upon the chickens.  Dirty looks abound.

They actually got off light this year as I've honed my chicken butt shearing technique and they don't look *quite* like they've been attacked by a rabid blind woman with hedge shears.

But hey, we have fertile eggs!

Jellybean isn't convinced I'm done however, and keeps her butt firmly up against the wire to ward off further indignities.

...and gives me some fierce 100 proof Kraienkoppe Chicken Glare to seal the deal.

Meanwhile, Fran and Silver, two of the 14 year old ladies who don't have to worry about such things any more, dustbathe in the sun...

...while for mysterious reasons known only to her, Tingle stands there fascinated with her foot.

Hopefully broodiness is ramping up for Chickam.  Here, Bubbles attains Chicken Zen and practices her 1000 yard stare.

But Pie remains skeptical of the golf ball Broody Boosters.

In the end, the golf balls were carefully and dutifully tucked under themselves by each hen and happily sat upon.

Broody Hen Detente

So now we have three broody hens.

Wiggles the gray mottled Belgian d'Uccle bantam is still going strong and really getting in to it. Yoya the gray Giant Cochin has decided to stick with it (for now) and Colonel, another chick from last year, has decided to brood. Colonel is one of the MilleFleur d'Uccle bantams.

Yesterday evening Yoya and Colonel apparantly teamed up to oust poor tiny Wiggles from her eggs, which PISSED HER OFF. I was out there passing out dandelion greens when Wiggles ran up to me, clucking rapid-fire, grabbing my pant leg and pulling me towards the coop.

OK, gotta go see what tiny angry hen wants. I walk in that direction and she sprints ahead of me, growling and clucking all the way, stopping in front of HER nest box and staring in.

Uh oh. I check it and find Yoya and Colonel.  I reach in to pet them, scritch their heads a bit...

But I take too long to suit Hitler-in-a-hen. Outraged pacing, extra-large fluffing up and full-on loud, *angry* bucawking starts at my feet--clearly this is, 'Mom, they took my nest. No fair! Make 'em give it baaack, NOW!' The Belgian Time Bomb is about to reach DEFCON 1.

Well, those hens ain't moving and Wiggles is clearly ramping up to bring the hammer down for a bantam Shock-And-Awe campaign. Time to head this off.

I end up taking one of the eggs from under Yoya and setting it in the next nest box over and showing it to Wiggles...

She stares into the new nest box for a minute, then reluctantly decides that this is an acceptable compromise and slowly heads in to sit on it.

All is quiet again, for now...

Happy Easter!

Got our Easter egg hunt in before the rain came down, thankfully. The chickens enjoyed this weird, mystifying ritual as usual.

Bear investigates the egg basket...

...and later mugs the kid for an egg.

She also enjoys snuggling with J.--she ONLY does this if he is wearing his robe.

While Phoenix looks on with a jealous stare and whines, which is what HE does every time. When chicken distrusts a situation or wants to keep a close eye on something, they turn their head and look at it with one eye, as he is doing here. That is because they see better this way rather than looking straight on at something.  So while it looks like Phoenix is looking at me, he is actually keeping a watchful eye on Bear and worrying.

Poof the White Crested Black Polish hen shows off her spurs:

Scott heybabies some hens...

A stretch & flap from Smokey.

Yoya the gray Giant Cochin and Phoenix pose for a communist propaganda poster.

'Ya comrade, now heroically look out into the glorious future!'

Bug, who is broody, emerges after a bit to stomp around the yard and be irritated. The other chickens are careful not to make direct eye contact, as broody hens are like the crazy, dangerous homeless guy who hangs out behind the minimart and holds angry conversations with an invisible friend.

We hand out some Easter eggs, of course. While the others look on in amazement, Sora the White Leghorn levitates to get one!

Betty tries it, too!

In the end they all got some yummy hard-boiled eggs are everyone was happy.

Sigh...

So we are now UP to 10 broody hens in the coop, and DOWN to 6 eggs under them. They cracked another egg this morning, I think due to fighting and shoving over who gets to set on them.

I'm thinking from now on of isolating a hen or two with all of the eggs, and letting them set in peace. I'm doubting that any of the current eggs under the hens will hatch due to all of this. We'll see.

I See Baby Chicks Starting!

Some of the eggs are clear--the Polish ones--but others have embryos starting, hurrah! And in BOTH incubators! Can the real culprit be as simple as 'too many eggs in the incubators'? And if it really DOES end up being a '12-20 at the MOST' deal for the incubators, why does Miller Manufacturing say you can place 46 eggs per incubator? The humidity & temps feel MUCH better, too.

Hmmm.... Now if we can only keep the eggs going and get them to hatch--!

As for the broody hens outside...we now have EIGHT hens that have gone broody, including Bear, our Head Hen. I think they've realized that we are leaving eggs for them to hatch and they're all trying to horn in on the action. Bear has succeeded in taking over one nest with three of the eggs, while four other hens are setting two to a nest and have the remaining 4 eggs split up between them. At least the paired off ladies are being nice enough to share an egg apiece. I do think that when hatch time comes, we'll either choose one hen (likely Bear) for mama and give her all of the eggs, or just go with two of the ones who have paired up. I hate to deprive the others of their eggs, but they have already broken three of the initial eggs we set under them by fighting over them, and I don't want to shift things around again just yet and have it start up again.

Two weeks to go!

Once More Into The Breach!

Into the incubators, actually. AND hens! Since we've got about 6 of the girls who have gone broody (the coop is a Terror Zone for the other chickens, who dash in, lay their eggs and LEAVE), I've set 5 eggs each under Moet, who has raised chicks before and is an excellent mama and Zevon/Splash--two sisters who are brooding together and get along well. Splash and Zevon have peacefully divided up their 5 eggs--Splash has three, Zevon has 2. Moet is a Frizzle buff Cochin, Zevon is a Frizzle Cochin mix and Splash is a nice large, plump bantam of mixed heritage. These eggs will be my test--if the hens can't hatch them either, I'll know it's not my incubators or me who is at fault. I know a lot of our girls are older, so it could be affecting the hatch--but then we've got a lot of young girls, too. It's a mystery...

In the two incubators, we've drastically cut the number of eggs and will have only 20 eggs in each one. Each set of eggs is numbered 1-20 and marked with an X on one side and an O on the other, in order to track which ones have been turned. They'll get turned at least three times a day. The new incubator has been upgraded with a forced-air fan to better circulate the air around the eggs, the old incubator has a new thermostat. I'm also going with leaving all the red ventilation plugs in on both incubators in hopes of raising the humidity, which has been a real bear to get and keep to where it is supposed to be.

We'll start the eggs at 6PM tonight, which should give us a hatch date of 5-23-09--the day before Memorial Day!

It's A Plot, I Tell Ya...

In their ongoing quest to brood and hatch a clutch of eggs, my hens have started laying away again. 'Laying away' means creating little sneaky nests anywhere BUT the lovely nest boxes that J. made especially-special for them. They do this juuuust infrequently enough so that we forget about it, until we realize that for the last few days our egg production has dropped by half.

Then it's off to play Off Season Easter Egg Hunt. Usually it's the banties that pull this stunt, who, if you ask the man that owns one; will tell you are wicked clever little snots. Favorite hidden nest spots of the past (not counting eggs laid in the house) include: an old wheelbarrow full of potting soil and large gravel that I was going to use as a planter--eggs laid DIRECTLY on the stones, in a trash can, in a long redwood planter, on top of the folding table and my personal favorite: suspended in air in the branches of the sage bush in the herb garden. That was a good one, we didn't find THAT little treasure trove for nearly two weeks. Silly us, we were looking UNDER the bush...

Usually when a hen is going to lay an egg, the entire neighborhood hears about it in advance for some 20 minutes. Loud, anxious cackling along with a desperate hunt for THE PERFECT SOMEPLACE TO LAY THIS EGG TO END ALL EGGS. She is accompianied by the rooster, who will follow her around crawling into lovely dark hidey-holes, burbling charmingly and suggestively, trying to sell her on HIS special nest. After several long minutes of this nonsense, including loud, repeated requests to be allowed in the house to lay the egg there (NO thank you, I fell for THAT one before), she finally settles on the same spot she always lays her eggs. It's when she gets quiet that she's actually laying the egg, followed by another round of explosive, joyful cackling which all the other hens take up, too. A hen will lay an average of 6 eggs a week, or an egg every other day. Say you've got 10 hens. Each one cackles for herself AND all the others for every freakin' egg. Now you know why farmers drive tractors. It's so they can get a few minutes of QUIET.

Currently we have six hens that have gone broody--that is, they've Gone Over To The Dark Side. Suddenly the sweetest, gentlest little hen morphs into Godzilla. She stays on the nest all day in a trance. She will come off the nest once or twice a day to eat, drink, and poop massively and with a grand stink. The other chickens run for the other side of the yard when a broody comes off the nest and stomps, clucking loudly and angrily, across the yard. It's chicken PMS From Beyond Hell. God help you if you stick your hand near her to roust her off the nest or, most heinous crime of all, take her eggs. Loud, chicken-y death shrieks, fluffing up and bloodletting (yours) follow quickly. Most heartbreaking of all is the nearly human shrieks from the hens that sound JUST like they are sobbing, "Nooooo!" as you remove the eggs from under them. We are heartless, murderous fiends to take their unborn and yes, we feel lower than dirt and apologize.

So lucky us, we've got SIX of these right now. Since we don't want more chicks, we have to both take their eggs each day (the other chickens gleefully find a broody hen and climb in with her to lay their eggs) AND roust them off their nests and into the safety of the coop each night. Some of the broods have formed Survivor-ish alliances and sit together in one nest. That's better, that way no matter HOW you stick your hand in there you're gonna get bit.

Little snots...