I’ve started watching a friend’s son two days a week and the situation is pretty ideal. They live close, her schedule is flexible, and the little boy is just the sweetest, mellowest little kid. I was worried since he is only just barely a year old that he might be a lot of work, and he is (he’s very busy), but he’s also very calm and happy pretty much all the time. Meredith adores him and asks when he will be coming back again.

Otherwise, not much new. The ducks are around 4 weeks old now, and entering the teen years where their adult feathers are starting to come in, so they look pretty funny. They are super sweet though. They came down to where we were building the sand box to check it out (they have been free ranging with the hens now during the day), and walked right up to us. One even crawled onto Meredith’s lap for a worm. They come right up to us when we are outside and aren’t skittish in the least. They are very messy though. I can’t wait until they are outside full time!

If we didn’t already have so many chickens I would be seriously debating just having ducks and foregoing the chickens altogether. I guess we will see once they start laying how their eggs are. Some people don’t notice a difference, and others find they taste fishy (and think it’s because of all the slugs they eat). We have lots of slugs and I’m hoping they will eat them, so we may not get yummy eggs from them.

I had the date the chicks should hatch marked on the calendar but wasn’t expecting much. The day came and went with no chicks, and we were trying to decide the best way to get her off her nest full of eggs. Then the next day I walked in the coop and heard cheeping. Despite the eggs having gone cold more than once, she managed to hatch out four chicks over the course of three days, though one was born with a weird bump and she ended up dying unfortunately. The other three are doing fantastic though. It is really amazing to watch a mama hen raising her babies. She keeps them warm, protects them from the other hens, leads them around to food. It has been so much easier doing it this way than inside the house, though we haven’t done a full integration yet. If she’s out with the other hens I make sure I’m right there with them. The other ones mostly leave the chicks alone, though our Barred Rock did peck pretty hard at one and a few of them have gone at the mama.

They’ve mostly been sticking to the coop, but it’s been nice out and they’re getting a bit bored locked in a dog kennel all day, even if it is a big one, so I brought them outside to run around for a bit.

Mama ventured out first to look around, but then the babies followed soon after. They’re around two weeks old now.

Meredith wanted to name them water names, because she decided they like water. So we’ve called them Calypso, Neptune, and Doris. In the above two pictures the other hens were around, and mostly leaving them alone, but then I wanted to go inside and didn’t want to leave them out unprotected yet so I put them in our fenced off garden area.

I threw a pumpkin in with them, and it was pretty fun to watch them go at it.

I went inside for a little bit and came out to check on them (though we can also see that area from our window), and discovered all the other hens standing watching them as if they were watching a movie.

Though a little later we watched a crow swoop down at them, which freaked mama out and she went running. I had a scary moment when I ran out there when I couldn’t find one of the babies, but she was hiding near a log. I ended up locking them back up in the kennel again for a day, which is too bad because they really enjoy running around. The area is way too big to put any kind of cover over though, so I’m going to have to think of something else or just risk it. The cubes we used for the chicks last time have been repurposed as book shelves so won’t work, but we have some scrap wire I could probably bang together into some sort of makeshift tractor for them. Then I can even put them with the other hens and let them mingle but they’d have a safe place to escape to too.

This chicken thing is turning out to be a lot of fun and a good learning experience for us all. We’ve learned so much about chicken reproduction and how they raise their babies through books and, of course, watching it first hand.

My plan with this move has always been to start small and build from there, so as not to overwhelm ourselves. So that’s why we will soon have 17 chickens and I placed an order for thirteen fruit trees, as well as various berry bushes and shrubs. Now we just need to build a coop and some runs, clear the area where the trees are going, and dig some holes. I guess that’s my idea of starting small.

The chicks are doing really well. We had a bit of a scare the other night when a tree knocked out the power to our house for about twelve hours. The room got really chilly and the younger chicks were obviously cold, so we lit a fire and I moved them into the small tote they had been in originally in front of the fire. I checked them a couple of minutes later and the heat was up over 100F and the chicks were now obviously too hot. In order to get the temperature right, we had to keep them in the rabbit hutch with the fire going and a window (not near the coop so no drafts) open, and add more wood to the fire about every 45 minutes (and of course this happened in the evening… it was a long night).

Yesterday was pretty nice out, so we brought the two older chicks outside for a few minutes. They pretty much stood in the tote and stared out at the grass. I even tried bribing them with crickets but they’d only go for them if they were in the tote too. The look on Meredith’s face in the picture above pretty much sums up how thrilled she is with having chickens in the house.

The chicks are really comfortable around Meredith, which is nice. Fiona and her fast movements and loudness don’t seem to both them much either. My favourite is the little Dorking cross. She comes racing to the door when I open it, and is really sweet with us. She’s bossy with the other chicks though. She will grab a cricket right out of the bigger one’s mouths and push past them. Makes me wonder if she’ll end up being the top hen. (And if she ends up being a rooster, maybe she’ll be the one we keep if she’s still this funny and sweet when she’s bigger.) Here’s a little video of her running to the door, grabbing a cricket, and then the rest of the birds coming to see what I’m up to. This was taken yesterday. Today, four of the five birds will come right to the door when I open it.

Chicks

Having the chicks actually here has really motivated me to look more into some ideas that had previously piqued my interest but I haven’t had much of a chance to look into yet. I’ve been reading about open-air coops, and have that book coming into our library. (Hopefully soon, we need to get our coop built.)

I’ve also been reading about feeding chickens from the land and homemade chicken feed. That topic is pretty confusing, since so many places say commercial feed only, but since that’s what most people say about cat and dog food too (and we raw feed them), I’m skeptical. I’ve found quite a bit of interesting information now about feeding chickens more naturally, and feel we can probably feed them at least mostly off our land in the summer for sure. I’ve found some information on sprouting grains and homemade food that I want to find out more about before winter.

The Orpingtons are six weeks old and the rest are two weeks old. I’m actually kind of glad now that we have them that we started with older chicks. They’re not as fragile as day olds and Meredith can hold them and love on them (gently), and hopefully by the time we get the day olds they won’t be such a novelty. It also gives us a little leeway as far as the learning curve.

Anyway, here they are. I’m aware that the tote they’re in is way too small. That’s what happens when you buy chicks when you weren’t planning on it. We plan to move them into a rabbit hutch we have that’s quite a bit bigger, as well as off the ground and more cat proof. We also ended up moving the light that’s on them. They don’t need nearly that much heat at their age. I’ll take better pictures of them as they become a little more comfortable with us. This was just a snapshot I got last night when it was pretty dark already.

Getting chickens is one of the first things I looked into. I decided I wanted Rhode Island Reds and Ameraucanas, and happened to find a nearby breeder who not only has both those breeds, but is also extremely helpful. Her Ameraucanas are bred for colour and eggs, rather than for exhibition (exhibition ones are generally only one colour, hers are several), and she says her Rhode Islands are generally better tempered than they have a reputation for being. She has two young children too who help with her chickens and they are fine with them. She also has Welsummers which I hadn’t heard much about previously, but they are a very friendly bird and an excellent egg layer. So I’m getting three chicks of each breed from her, plus three Mille Fleur Belgian d’Uccles which are a bantam breed which have a great personality and make good pet birds. (I originally wanted Silkies, but haven’t found a breeder nearby. The breeder I’m getting these from normally has them, and hopes to again next year.) The chicks will be unsexed and will be here in just over a month! I’d like to end up with 4-6 laying hens at the end of the summer. The roosters will go in the freezer. (Any bad-tempered hens may too.) Not sure what we’ll do with any bantam roosters. Since they are more for fun/pets anyway, we’ll likely keep them as long as they are friendly and all get along. I may keep one Ameraucana or Welsummer rooster too, we’ll see.

We may also get ducks. Meredith loves ducks and has been asking for one. They are good for eating slugs and don’t dig up gardens like chickens do (though can still do damage). Some people love their eggs. (Others can’t stand them. One of the Cowichan home school moms I was talking to said they always taste like a chicken egg gone off to her.) So, we’re looking into it and I’m keeping my eye out. Lots of information to absorb though.

We went to the library yesterday. They had a story time, which Meredith wanted to sit in by herself, giving me a half hour to browse around by myself! Anyway, we got out some books about chickens and ducks (as well as rocket ships, something she is currently fascinated by). Meredith has been asking to read them over and over. Now when we look at pictures of chickens, she points out the combs and the wattles. She knows that chickens have beaks and ducks have bills. She talks about how ducks have webbed feet to swim with and chickens have strong claws to scratch up the ground and search for bugs. She’s very excited to get baby chicks next month. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with them!