The Great Molt of 2011

We currently have eight hens.  Five have been laying well for a long while and three are our new Easter Eggers that are right on the cusp of laying eggs.  One of the "babies" started laying this week, and the other two should start any day now.  The other five hens have not laid a single eggs in over a week.  They are ALL molting right now!  There are feathers everywhere, and we are only getting one tiny blue egg a day. 

Chickens molt about once a year.  They lose a majority of their feathers and replace them with fresh feathers.  It is not a pretty process.  Our five hens look rather ratty right now.  Here are a few pictures we took today.

Our beautiful Maple.  She looks awful right now.

Poor girls

Even their necks look bad.

Layla.  She one of our originals.

Layla

Mavis (named by our two-year-old) and Hedwig.

Our (Hideous) Backyard Hens

Naming Chickens

Out of our six EE chicks, we are only keeping three.  The other three will be going to my parents' house.  We aren't sure which three we are going to keep, so we haven't given them names yet.  Except for this girl. I'm a Harry Potter fan, so I could not resist naming this one Hedwig after Harry's owl.  She's one that we are for sure keeping as I have grown rather attached to her.  I'm pretty sure I'll name the other two we get to keep after Harry Potter characters as well.

Hedwig

Here's an excellent shot I got of Omelette while she was in the nesting box.  She is still by far our friendliest hen.  Not a lap bird by any means, but she always comes running when we come outside.

Omelette

Naughty Chickens!

We have had three successful nights in a row of the girls going into their coop and going to bed where they are supposed to.  However, one naughty chicken has decided that its a great idea to lay her eggs under the ramp.  I put a log under the ramp so whoever it is can't nestle down under there, so we'll se if it stops the next couple of days.

Egg under ramp

I've read that feeding the girls pumpkin can help prevent worms, so here's a picture of the babes eating some canned pumpkin.

Omelette and Maple

Owen feeding the hens.

Security Breach

We had our first attempted break-in last night.  When I went down this morning to let the big girls out, I found a small hole that was dug down to the hardware cloth we had buried when putting in the coop.  I'm really glad we took the time to do that.  The girls are safe, and the hole is now filled in.

The big girls are doing great.  We are still getting a dozen eggs a week even though days are short.  The chicks are not really  chicks any more.  They are awkward adolescents.  They are doing well in the garage and have come to enjoy scratch.  They will be eight weeks old on Wednesday.  We will leave them in the garage in the dog crate until the new coop is ready.

Owen and the Hens

Here are a few pictures of the big girls.  They are getting braver.  Layla was willing to get within three feet of Owen and the scratch he was offering.  Tillie and Yadi still hang back though.  It'll be interesting to see who the boss is when the new chicks join the flock.

Owen really enjoys giving the hens their "special treats" after school everyday.

Video of Owen feeding the hens.

Three week old chicks...

Three week old chicks are incredibly entertaining.  Our girls are starting to love human attention and get very excited when we get near the brooder.  They jump right into our hands now, and they will take treats right from our hands.  They have had the opportunity to try crickets, meal worms, and grapes.  When we first dropped the crickets into the brooder, they freaked out.  They were terrified.  Their little chirps were of shear terror.  Eventually they figured out they could eat the little buggers, and the crickets disappeared within 15 minutes.  They were much more willing to try the worms the next day.  They took them right from our hands and chased each other around trying to steal the other's away.  Very entertaining.  Now they expect a special treat every time they see us.  We gave them a couple of grapes tonight.  They pecked at them a few times, but weren't nearly as interested in them as they are in the worms.

I haven't taken any more photos of the big girls.  The sun has just been setting too quickly the past few weeks.  They are able to get out of the coop for about an hour each night around dusk, but that's about it.  They look for me every evening after school and scurry out of the coop the second I open the door.  We plugged in the water heater over the weekend when we woke to frozen water.  I'm anxious to get the larger coop built.  I think they will be much happier in there.

 

16 Days Old

Our chicks are 16 days old now and growing feathers quickly.  I can't believe how fast they change.  They are eating their chick chow well and drinking plenty of water every day.  They are not nearly as hard to care of as I thought they would be.  We've been making it a point to pick them up and pet them for a while every evening and most mornings.  One of them really seems to enjoy this time, but the other isn't as comfortable with it.  They are very attached though.  When we take one out of the brooder, the other cries this pitiful chirp that clearly indicates concern.

We are going to start building our new coop this weekend.  See, we already have the three lovely ladies, but that little coop we bought from mypetchicken.com is no where near large enough for five hens.  Considering how fast these chicks are growing, I think we'd better get going on a new place to house them.  We have decided on building The Garden Coop along the back fence in our yard.  We are going to lengthen it by an extra section to make sure there is room for ten hens.  Ten is the Colorado Springs limit, so we figure we might as well have room for as many as we're allowed in case we ever decide to add on to our flock.  We plan to do most of the construction over Thanksgiving Break and move these girls in right around Christmas.

As for the other girls, they are doing very well.  We are still getting about a dozen eggs a week, which is excellent.  The eggs have started to get darker the past couple days, but I have no idea why.  They are beautiful, large brown eggs with thick orange yolks.  Yum!

All three big girls are becoming less skittish around us though they still want nothing to do with us.  Yadi has even started to come towards me when I bring down a treat for them.  She keeps her distance until I leave, but she has figured out that I mean something good is about to happen.  Basically, they no longer run in fear, but they are no where near letting us pet them.  I'll have to take some more pictures of the big girls this weekend.

Here are a few pictures I took tonight with my cell phone.  The quality isn't that great, but you can see how much they have grown.  The one facing the camera is Lola, and she is definitely the head chick.  Omelette is the other girl, and she is the one who enjoys being held.  

Our dog Cooper is very interested is these two new creatures living in her house.

Surprise!

I took today off from work because I haven't been feeling too well.  Shortly after he left for work, Derek calls me and says, "Can I bring home two chicks?  They're Buff Orpingtons."  Well, of course I said yes!  Chicks!  How cool!

So I spent the next few hours running around town getting everything I need to set up a brooder and care for two tiny chicks.  I went to Colorado Agri-Feed and bought a small bucket of starter feed, a brooder lamp, and a brooder bulb.  Then I went to Lowe's and bought a 30 gal storage bin.  It's 18 inches deep, so they'll be able to stay in there until they are ready to move outside.  I put in a chick safe water container and two small dishes of chick chow.  I also added some chunks of 2x4 for a roost.

The chicks are exactly one week old today.  They were hatched from McMurray Hatchery on 10/27/10.  Derek brought them home right after school, and we plopped them right into to brooder and they found the water and food within a minute.  They are active, and peeping cheerfully!

Layla

Yadi

All three big girls ready for bed.

They're Here!

We drove out past Calhan early this morning and bought three beautiful hens from Barebottom Ranch.  They birds were free-ranging with a bunch of ducks and turkeys.  The owner was very kind and helped us catch our three new ladies.  We put them in a wire dog crate in the back of our little orange car.  They were a little stressed out on the drive home.  We put them into their new coop, and they all ate a few bites of their chicken chow before finding their way into the hen house.  I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.