Tiny Gets to Perch with the Big Girls!

The integration process of our second, younger flock with the older flock was, rough this year.  We had to factor in Tiny and the thought process of chickens who have a hierarchy approach to life. While we certainly tried a lot of strategies, the process become one of taking out the most aggressive in the flock and "hand picking" a flock that was receptive to having a disabled bird in their midst. 

Now, that, emotionally, was not an easy decision but that's what it became. Plus, even after we got the "right" flock, they still were not receptive to her sleeping up next to them at night.  I put a brooder warmer into the corner of the hen house that she slept under for weeks.  But, at some point, she started to sleep up on a perch.  Not their perch, but close to them, and I'm guessing that she gets some warmth radiating from them? 

One of them, yesterday, injured her foot. Our Rhode Island Red was limping and falling over at times. I brought her into the house. I washed both feet all off, and didn't see any injury. No Blood. No Stickers. No Redness.  So it is just not clear. We pulled a dog crate into the laundry room so that we could keep an eye on her.  She did not move very much but she is able to stand.  She can't put much weight on it, and she definitely pulls it in close to her body when I pick her up.  She even laid us an egg today.  

Rather than put her back out with the flock, I have cleaned out one of our brooders and set  her up with everything she needs. She has a perch, food, grit and water, on a nice soft layer of shavings. She can walk /move around in there much better than she can in the crate, and this will give her some opportunity to exercise the muscles as she heals. 

As such, Rhody is not in the videos of the Tiny Bedtime Story. It is obvious that Tiny is trying to convince the other birds that she deserves to be up on the "main roost" with them, but, they kinda sweep her off to the side and tell her this is good enough. Her little vocals are pretty expressive for a chicken. 

Hatchery Brood for 2023

 

New Hatchery Order for the 2023 brood.  Am trying a different hatchery that is certified as NPIP. I ordered 50 all at once instead of the 20 to 25 that I typically order twice per year. The price of chicks went up again, and of course, shipping costs went up too.  Hoping to make this a more cost effective process. We have two brooders, and we can pull the pen into the garage if necessary. Going to go ahead and order my feed now so that I can write it off for this year and save a bit of money since feed prices keep going up. So, essentially, I'll need close to 300# of chick feed to get a brood of 50 girls started! Will get our meat birds around Easter time, and then, we'll be done with the baby chick process much sooner in the year. 

Snow Ducky Day 2022

 SNOW!  Although not our official first pre-winter snow day, it is sticking and accumulating. The ducks seem thoroughly unfazed even though I don't see them spending much time in their pool today. 

The chickens are snowless inside their pen.  We had rearranged the wind blocks to the north and east of the chicken coop and no snow for them to deal with. Chilly, but they seem happy with the set up.  

Ducks coop inside is also snowless so they have a place to get out of the snow and out of the weather if they choose. 

This is the first real snow day of the season where it (the snow) doesn't melt almost as quickly as it lands. 

Getting Blown Away with the Ducks

I posted a few overnight videos of the ducks and since I can only post three per blog, I will post today's windy videos on youtube and link to them.  

With this coop design, we struggle with keeping the wind from blowing through and creating a wind tunnel blow out. Since we get wind from all directions on any given day, it can be difficult to find a "single" spot to direct the front of the duck coop.  We need to build a basic wind barrier that allows the ducks to have access to their coop during the day for food, weather protection, and safety reasons, and still gives us access to clean and reposition the coop as needed. 

On the back area, where they sleep, there is an access door that we have covered with two barriers. One is a plastic lattice fence panel because it is flexible, and allows us to drape plastic tarp over it while leaning into the back of the coop without the tarp being ripped to shreds by the elements (and little critters). Then, over that, we have a short cedar fence panel that we lean against the lattice and try to secure that with a stake. 

But, with the wind blasts so hard that it can literally lift the coop off the ground, or even blast through heavy barriers that can get blown over, as shown above.. 

The other clips involve the ducks running to the coop for "safety" from something that scares them.  It could be a dog, a coyote, a hawk, or even a loud sound that sends them scurrying for safety. 

And, then general "eating and drinking" purposes in the coop, even with the blow out on the back side of the coop. LOL 

Duckaroo Roundup 2022

The ducks have also been keeping us busy trying to ensure that they have a safe, warm, dry space for sleeping (which they seem to do in spurts over night).  I set up my wildlife cam last night.  Unfortunately I only got a few hours of footage because when temps drop to freezing, it won't record correctly. 

The "hoop" coop design is working fairly well, but it can be difficult to insulate. We have added some heavier tarps over the their sleeping area, and added a heavy clear tarp over the front section that allows sunlight to get in during the day to warm it up with some passive solar. We have their gate covered with heavy clear plastic too, to keep the winds from cooling things down when it storms. 

On the videos, I combined a few to make fewer uploads because I'm only allowed a few videos per post.  I will note that the temps on the camera are rarely accurate.  No it was not over 70 degrees F at all yesterday.  We almost got to 60F, but certainly was much cooler than that after 4pm. LOL And we had ice on the duck pool this morning, so, yes, it got freezing cold last night/this morning. 

When they are not sleeping, they spend a lot of time foraging inside their coop. 

Or, they spend a lot of time quacking up at their own jokes. 

And then snacking again. 

A Tiny Update: The little chicken with a huge heart

I should write a children's book with this Tiny one! LOL As many of you know, Tiny is the little dwarf chicken we received with our last brood of day olds from the hatchery. She was always tiny and we assumed she would catch up eventually or that she would die because she was so small.  We always made certain that she could get access to the food and water.  As she reached the stage of starting to fly (a little) and roosting on a perch, we made certain that she had access to those situations too.  We created a little series of steps that allowed her to perch on a roosting bar right next to her bigger but same aged peers. When she had enough perching time, she would fly down and do her other chicken activities. 

Tiny is a French Black Copper Marans. We kept thinking she wouldn't survive very much longer due to her size and her round deformed body with her way too big feet. But here we are, almost four months later, and she's still with us and with some modifications to our flock and coop, she is living the chicken life. She is slightly larger than a softball and basically shaped like a ball with a head and feet. Her tail is deformed, and she does not have much of a neck. Ironically, she was fully accepted by her original flock sisters, another Black Copper Marans, and two Golden Comets. 

We tried to integrate Tiny and her flock mates with some bantams, hoping that the bantams' smaller size would be just the ticket.  Um... not the case with at least one bantam who wanted to dominate over the whole entire flock. But we kept trying to make it work.  At least the bantams were not being too aggressive.  

We had both pens/coops side by side for more than a month with the hens able to see the pullets and the pullets able to see the hens.  When the other birds within Tiny's original flock were of the right size to integrate into our hen flock, we tried several different integration ideas to put the six pullets, including bantams, in with the four hens.  But, at best, it had been only semi-settled for Tiny and the less dominant bantam. One factor was that blasted assertive bantam. In the bantam's attempt to be the most dominant of all, she started to crow like a rooster, even though it was obvious she was a she. The other bantam just hid inside the henhouse all day, refusing to come out for fear of being attacked by her bantam sister, or one of the hens. It was obvious that the second bantam was as low as Tiny in the pecking order. To that bantam's advantage was her speed and great flying abilities. Tiny on the other hand could only fly short distances and because of her health, needs to take several naps throughout the day. 

Inside the henhouse, we added a tree branch to allow Tiny access up to a lower roost to perch at night. Tiny could navigate the branch just fine, but some of the dominant hens did not want Tiny perching on any roost.  So she would sleep in the corner and usually she could coerce another of the younger birds to sleep with her in the corner. 

We thought we finally had a fairly stable, albeit not quite cohesive integration solution in place. But then, as hierarchy animals sometimes do, when wanting "order," attack the weakest to get the rest in line. At the end of a dark stormy day we found Tiny huddled in the corner of the pen. She had been brutally attacked.  One whole side of her tiny face, head, and comb, had been mangled. Her face looked like an eyeball placed in the middle of some hamburger meat. She was lethargic, limp, cold, and seemed ready to give up. Normally, when she is in distress, she is very vocal about it.  But not this time. Not a sound. 

Quickly setting up a healing station in the laundry room, we washed, medicated, and watched over Tiny. She had no interest in food. We gave her some of her favorite treats in an attempt to get her to start eating, along with some medicated water to help try to get her stabilized. We put a brooder warmer in her space, which is a small, elevated, heating plate used to act like a momma hen for newly hatched chicks. She laid down in front of the warmer with her head just under the outer edge for the warmth. She kept shaking, but eventually started to move around on her own, then eating, and drinking. Each day, she became a bit more active, vocal, and alert.  

As she healed over the next few days, we tried to come up with ideas for keeping her safe inside the pen with the other birds. We decided to set up a dog crate for her in the middle of the pen, with the brooder warmer, some food, grit, water, and dry hay. We placed the crate out there for a day before transferring her in, to give the hens and pullets the opportunity to get used to it being there, with nothing but the hay inside. They actually thought this was their own personal hay dispenser. They were eating the grass from it to the point of one of them getting too much and having some crop (digestion) issues. We also set up a trail cam to help us check on the recordings to help reassess the situation.

When Tiny's face was mostly healed and some of the feathers were growing back in, we put her and her items inside the crate, inside the pen. This was extremely scary for her because two of the hens were intent on terrorizing her. Persistently, they were circling Tiny's crate, trying to figure out how to get in, and basically giving Tiny the "evil eye." If they were talking to her, we couldn't hear it, but their body language was surely sending a clear message.  Tiny was hiding under her warmer for the first two hours. She was not making any attempt to come out to even eat or drink. We decided to add some extra "barriers" on the side of the crate to give her some sense of assurance that the hens could not get to her. It worked, Tiny finally started moving around inside her crate, sitting on top of the warmer, and vocalizing with her friends on that first day. 

The first night, after the hens and other pullets had left the pen to go roost, I checked in and Tiny was squawking about her distress. In truth, that's a good sign from her. She was letting everyone one know "I have an issue here!" At first, I thought she was just upset about not being able to go up in the house with the other girls.  But, just to be certain, I checked all the possibilities, like, was it wet in there?  It was not wet, but, I discovered that her brooder warmer was not warm. The cord had become disconnected from the power source. The hens, when circling her crate, probably tripped over the cord? Not sure, but I reconnected the warmer, and within minutes, her distress cries calmed down and turned into happy cheeps. She was snuggled under the warmer and drifting off to sleep. I checked on her a few more times that night, and she was quietly sleeping in her crate, in the pen, under the henhouse. All was quiet and peaceful, at last. 

Over the next few days, we would go and "supervise" Tiny outside of the crate. One of us would go sit in the pen, to give Tiny 15 or 20 minutes of interaction time with the birds, several times each day.  On the first two days, it went well.  She was able to peck at the ground, pull some grass, scratch the ground, look for bugs, eat some food from one of the feeders at the top of the ramp, and it "seemed" like this might eventually work.  But on the third day, it was cold and gray again, and one of the hens took to targeting Tiny again, whenever Tiny attempted to get too far away from protection (one of us). 

Obviously, even though it was quieter for a few days, there was not going to be peace in this particular hierarchy system as long as Tiny was in the group. We made note of which birds would just pass by or seemed unfazed by Tiny's presence. It was apparent that it was just our pair of Wyandotte hens along with that one bantam, who were determined to try to torment Tiny. There were other birds these three would harass, as well, to try to send a message.  Enough of that. We talked it over and decided that even though these hens (which are not that old really, only 8 months old) and their eggs, were less important to us than giving Tiny a chance to be as healthy and safe as possible. 

I placed an ad to sell the two tormenting hens. Within hours of placing the ad, a family with a farm in Washington drove 50 miles to pick them up and take them to their place. They paid a good price. Those Wyandottes are beautiful birds, great layers, and will be a great addition to any flock. That left us with the bantam issue.  Luckily, another family that had an interest in the two hens, offered to take our two bantams.  Before the week was over, There was a new sense of calm in the pen. We kept Tiny in the crate, though and kept the cam recording to watch, and continued with the daily Tiny interactions the next day until we felt it was safe.  The remaining two hens have expressed no interest in attacking Tiny or the other pullets. Tiny has been able to sleep in the sunshine without anyone stepping on her or disrupting her space. We took the brooder warmer out of the crate, and put it into the henhouse for Tiny's first "over night" in the henhouse since being injured, and Tiny emerged in the morning looking like a princess with the other birds, ready to take on a new day. 

Fingers crossed, and a much smaller flock, we have found the right flock mates for our Tiny. 

First Duck Egg and More.... 2022

One of our ducks laid her first egg this morning.  Found it in their pen. All dirty, but they didn't step on it! I took a photo of it along side the hen eggs that we gathered today.  The duck egg, at this point, is about the same size as the hen eggs but much lighter off-white with some gray blotches on it.  Not sure if they will always be that way, kind of two tone, or if the eggs will gradually become one tone. 

The pullets are being integrated with the hens this week.  They are still sleeping in their own areas, but we hope to push them all into the large pen in a few more days and start encouraging them to "get along."  I was able to get photos of them all, with the exception of our mature Black Copper Maran who was in the nesting box and I didn't want to distract her. 

Tiny the Micro Pullet Black Copper Marans

 We now have 10 chickens.  Four laying hens, four pullets that are 12 weeks old today, and two bantams that are about 16 weeks old that we picked up from a farm in Salem area.  It was thought that the bantams might be small enough to bond with our tiny "Tiny" Black Cooper Marans. Even the bantams are three times larger than the tiny one. I tried to get some photos of them as we attempt to integrate all ten together. The lighting wasn't very good and they were all very quick on their feet. I took Tiny out and did her photo shoot alone.  You can tell that she is not much larger than the palm of my hand. Considering that the 12 week old pullets are almost the same size as the hens, she obviously is never going to catch up. 

Here are some photos of Tiny and the Pullets from a month ago, and she really has not grown much in the past month. 

Fall 2022 Chickens and Ducks and Space

Ended up actually selling 16 birds this summer.  One was a rooster and I was able to get him sold fairly quickly at seven weeks of age, so that went pretty well. The last two pullets were picked up last weekend and now we only have the three viable pullets and our Tiny to raise over the winter months before selling them next year. The three are very tolerant of Tiny. But they won't sleep with her, no matter how much she pleads with them to join her on the warmer. hahah.

The ducks are 20 weeks old now and should be starting to lay eggs very soon.  We invested in an electric netting fence for them so that they can have more space to look for bugs, worms, etc., and their coop is more for them to sleep in, when they want.  We got it all set up yesterday, and they spent the whole night out exploring their new space and/or flying in and out of their little pond. They are so worn out, they have spent all morning in their coop today. 

Watering a lot to get their fence line damp so we don't have any field fires.  The fence is about 3.5 feet tall, and gives the ducks about 160 square feet of space for the four of them to "run" around in. 

 

Pre-Sold 15 Pullets for September 2022

 We have been taking advantage of the backyard chicken families that have decided now is the time to start raising their own eggs, as prices in the stores keep rising. We have these 15 cuties pre-sold to several families in the local area. During the warm summer days, they were developing much faster than the spring chicks we raise. Keeping them in the brooder was possible, but decided to put them outside a week early to give them time to acclimate to outdoor living before they go to their new homes. Last night, however, got really chilly (50F), so we decided to put a brooder warmer out there for them to huddle around.  Last night and this morning, there was grass hay for them to snuggle into to help with warmth. But, apparently they have decided they didn't like the hay on the tray, so they opted to rearrange it to a new location. Chickens are interesting in their decisions. 

Marans Dwarfism? Will she survive?

 We received 20 three-day old chicks from the hatchery, five of which were Black Copper Marans, on July 27.  One of the Marans was considerably smaller, and we just assumed she would catch up. After a week, and she still hadn't grown, we assumed she wouldn't survive.  We'd check her daily and her crop was full, and her eyes were bright, so we held out hope that she was just stunted some, and would catch up with the others soon.  

Well, they are five weeks old today and she is still less than half the size of the others.  Her size if that of a one-week old chick. But she holds her own. She pushes her way in to the feeder and waterer, she knows to hide when the big girls are practicing dive bombs from the perch, and at night she sleeps between the others on the perch. 

The big girls don't pick on her and they don't ignore her. They just don't play as rough with her as they do with the others. 

As you can see from the photos, one was taken on August 18, and the other on August 28. 10 days of growth is quite apparent with the one Marans, but Tiny has hardly grown at all. On the positive side, while she may look like a 1-week old chick, she acts more like a 4-week old chick. Her behaviors are almost age appropriate. 

New Chicks and other stuff in July 2022

 Our new chick brood arrived on July 27... one week later than anticipated.  Apparently, so they claim, they messed up their count on our order and wanted to send us chicks other than what I ordered.  I really wasn't keen on the breeds that they wanted to send.  Figured it would be better to wait a week than to try to sell a couple of breeds that we didn't anticipate. 

So, we received 20 chicks that have all survived. We have five Black Copper Maran, five Gold Comet/Red Star, three Rhode Island, and seven Barred Rock.  In the mean time, we sold three more of our hen/pullets.  Sold the Lavender Orpington pullet, the Barred Rock pullet, and the only laying hen we had left, the Rhode Island Red. Leaves us with Rhode Island Pullet, Black Copper Maran pullet (now laying), and two Silver Laced Wyandottes. Hoping we can sell most of the new chicks before we need to merge the flocks. 

The ducks are about six weeks from starting to lay their eggs. So it is not like we will be low on the egg department. 

We had a long extended heat wave in the middle of July, so the pullets (and one layer) got lots of melon treats and shaved ice for cooling off.  Have yet to figure out what treats the ducks like.  They do enjoy apple bits, but nothing else that I have tried have been any form of enticement or for cooling off purposes.  Of course, they love their cold water pool.  Even when it is not hot, they spend a lot of time in it. This is as close as they will allow anyone to get. Sorry the quality is not better. One of the ducks sounds like she is laughing when she is having fun.  I can never seem to catch the whole "laugh" on video... but I'll keep trying.

This next clip is as close to capturing "the laugh" as I have come so far... The series of quacks last about three to four seconds long, and rarely are they a "back to back" series of "laughs." Hahah

Pool Time Ducksters 2022

 So, the duck training is taking longer than I assumed it would, but they are gradually becoming less afraid each week.  I was able to get close enough to get a few photos of them in their pool.  Just not too close. 

A 3 Rooster Spring....

 We have been super lucky the past many years with only having one rooster show up in our very many broods...  I think the last time we accidentally got a Roo was in 2016? Considering we are now doing two broods per year for the past couple of years, I'm seriously surprised that we have not had at least one male per year.  This year, we ended up with three Cockerels; one each of Australorp, Black Copper Maran, and Easter Egger.  Thankfully, we were able to find homes for all three, eventually.  I was thinking I would never get rid of the Easter Egger and was starting to grow very fond of him.  Then, one of the families that purchased the Marans called this week to let me know that one of them was a Roo. We picked him up and refunded her money, letting her know that I will be starting another batch of Marans in July. She said she may want two of them, then... So we shall see. 

I changed up the Rooster Ad and within 24 hours, a person picked up both Roosters together.  Probably seems more worthwhile to pick up two rather than one, considering the gas prices at the moment? And there we have it.  We are down to three laying hens, six pullets, and four ducks. 

We did pick up a kiddie pool for the ducks that just barely fits inside their pen.  They had a blast for the few nice days of weather.  June has been very soggy.  While I would LOVE to have some heat, I certainly don't miss the 120F temps we had in June last year.  

We will be getting 20 more day-old pullets in a month for our second annual batch. 

All the meat chicks are processed, resting in the refrigerator, and starting to be frozen, a few at a time, to keep from overwhelming the freezers. Smallest carcass so far has been 4#8oz and the largest has been 6#5oz.  We had to cull a few Cornish Cross before they actually made it to processing day.  We processed 21 this year, which is pretty good.  We had 22 last year that made it to the end. We may get a small batch this fall to tide us over into next year.  We have been needing to purchase too many "fryers" from the store and with the prices going up on meat, it is better for us to just raise them ourselves. 

And, as such, we are settling into less work for a few weeks as everything unwinds into a dull routine of daily bird maintenance.  Another month, and most of the pullets should be starting to lay eggs.