The Losses and the Gains Heading into Winter, 2022/23

The Rhode Island Red that injured her leg had to be put down after several weeks of non-healing.  We tried, but could not get her to heal. 

After Rhody got hurt, we dealt with a Polar Vortex for a few days before Christmas.  Thankfully, we did not lose our power to our house, but the cold was extremely difficult on the birds. The freezing water pail and pool for the ducks was not fun. The ducks and most of the chickens did fine with extra bedding in their coops. But, Tiny suffered hypothermia and died on the first subfreezing day.  We had a brooder warmer inside the coop, but she didn't use it, and we didn't catch her situation in time to save her. Being so deformed, her metabolism never worked correctly, and this super cold temp became too much, unfortunately. 

Shortly after Christmas, we had a major wind and rain storm that blew in from the south west with 85+mph gusts that would pick up the duck coop and fling it four or five feet away. The winds did not pick up the chicken coop/mansion, but did push it sideways a foot or two, from time to time.  No birds injured of the chickens or the ducks, thankfully.  The duck coop did land on the electric fencing, and broke a few of the cheap fence posts that we were able to quickly replace. The winds broke a lot of branches from our trees, but luckily, nothing major was damaged. We picked up 240# of sand bags from the local gravel company to weight down the coop.  Lots of trees and huge branches went down. 

During one of the large gusts, one of our ducks, Toast, caught air just right to the point of going up about 15 feet into the air, and landing on the outside of the pen.  Normally, when she flies, she's only up about a foot or two off the ground. So this was a super surprise for her "abilities." We had to go out in the storm and get her back inside the pen so that the other ducks didn't get hurt trying to get to her. For days after that, she would rapidly flap her wings and run all around the pen trying to "catch air."  She just didn't have the same "conditions" to replicate that event.  Ducks are so funny and entertaining. 

About eight hours into the storm, we lost power for period of time, after a transformer blew, nearby.  We were thankful that the power came back on within 8 hours, only to discover that our house was receiving power surges.  It blew out a few of our GFCI and breakers in the power panel, and one of the outlets started smoldering. So we called an electrician out to be advised that the power company had not "reconnected" our power supply correctly, and we were receiving way too much power. That we needed to keep the electricity turned off to the entire house until the power company could fix it at their end.  The irony is that all our neighbors had power.  And, well, we did too, BUT, too much! We had to wait two more days without power and were just super thankful that it was not freezing outside, too. We were able to keep the inside of the house semi-warm, about 55 to 65F.  

Since we are on a well, we had a very limited water supply that we had saved from when the lights first started flickering at the start of the storm. We need electricity to pump water from the well to the house. Thankfully, before we lost power, we had filled two bath tubs with water, along with a five gallon crock pot. We also had some water left in our almost empty water tank out in our field, to take care of the animals and allow us to do basic chores. However, by the third day, we were getting ready to take a trip to a neighbor to get our spare water restocked. 

When the power company crew came back out, they advised that they had not connected the wire to our house correctly, and yes, it was a potential disaster. They gave us a card to file a claim for the damages that the power situation created. 

Rhody was on a downhill slide through all this.  Shortly after the new year, we culled and processed her.  We used her carcass to create chicken stock. So the holidays, in and of themselves, were less than joyous for all that we had to deal with. 

The ducks and our only active laying hen at the time, Rhody, had stopped laying eggs when it got super cold.  As of today, the ducks have not yet started laying eggs again.  However, our other, non-active laying hen did start laying eggs again just before New Years. Then, last Sunday, one of our younger Marans pullets started laying eggs. She has, since, laid four cute little eggs. Plus, today, one of the Comets laid her first egg.  So, I think we are back on track with egg production, even without the ducks laying.  Whew! 

Having the eggs again is really good because there is an egg shortage at many grocery stores due to Avian Influenza (AI) wiping out entire flocks of all types of poultry.  We are trying to be super cautious to protect our flocks.  There are a lot of reports of backyard flocks dying across the state.  Since it takes five to six months to raise layers from chicks, this situation is going to be a slow and costly recovery for a lot of commercial and backyard egg raisers. 

I'm hopeful that this will be a positive for us, ultimately, if I receive the 50 chicks that I ordered for delivery in mid-February. I'm hopeful because I will need to sell a lot of chicks/pullets by April of this year, or I'm going to have an overcrowding situation on my hands.  Decided to get all the chicks at once rather than two smaller batches in the late winter and the early summer.  This is going to be a test to see if one large batch will be more efficient of our time and cost of starting them. So, before winter is over, we will start brooding 50 day-old chicks in our garage.  After those chicks are old enough to go outside, we will be starting our meat chicks around the time of Easter, in April. 

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.