It's so hard in the spring, walking into the feed stores and the local Wilco farm store and seeing the big brooders full of cute, fuzzy, peeping chicks. So cute! So tempting! So far, I've resisted the urge to even touch the little balls of fluff, let alone purchase any, but it's like some low-level addiction. I've wanted to increase my flock again anyway...but I'm not sure I want to explain it to my husband.
Well, as is often the way, nature took care of it for me! My game hen cross, who has the not-very-matronly name of Racer X, decided last week that spring had sprung, and that meant she needed to have babies. She stopped laying, started sitting, and is now a big puffed-up ball of hissing feathers whenever I open the coop door. Poor sad little girl keeps switching nests to find the one with the biggest pile of eggs, and I keep stealing the eggs. Right now she's sitting on three golf balls and looking pretty smug about it.
I emailed the gal who gave me Racer X last year, and she brought me half a dozen fertile eggs. Tomorrow we'll reassemble the brooding pen and nest box, install Racer X, and then slip the eggs under her at night. Hopefully in three weeks we'll have a little flock of puffballs running around! The eggs are from a blue cochin father and a buff orpington mother, so I have no idea what they'll look like as chicks or as adults, but they're two of my favorite breeds, so it really doesn't matter!
Showing posts with label broody. Show all posts
Showing posts with label broody. Show all posts
Friday, March 5, 2010
Friday, July 31, 2009
Final Chick Tally
Of the original dozen eggs we put under the broody hen, we have four survivors. To my untrained eye, they appear to be three Rhode Island Reds and a Silver Laced Wyandotte. The only reason I can even guess that closely is that I know I only got RIR and SLW eggs, plus one Aracauna which was easily identified because it was a blue egg, and it didn't hatch.
We had four eggs that simply didn't hatch. No idea why. Mama sat on them religiously, turned them, and protected them. They might have gotten too warm in this week's heat spell. We also had three chicks that almost made it, but didn't quite. Two were apparently stepped on by Mama when they were in the middle of hatching, and one just looks like it didn't quite have the energy to pip all the way around the shell. One egg was crushed on the first night by the klutzy Mama.
All four babies and proud Mama hen are in their own mini enclosure out right next to the main chicken coop. They have their own food and water, their own nest, and a little ramp for getting into the nest. The ramp proved necessary after I went out to check on them last night and found the littlest chick sitting forlornly outside the nest box, peeping and unable to climb into the nest to join its foster Mama and foster siblings. I put the chick under Mama for the night, and we took care of the problem today with the ramp.
Now we have to see if Mama does a good job of raising them, and wait to see whether they're hens or roosters! (Crossing my finger that the SLW is a hen, because I'd like to have one!)
We had four eggs that simply didn't hatch. No idea why. Mama sat on them religiously, turned them, and protected them. They might have gotten too warm in this week's heat spell. We also had three chicks that almost made it, but didn't quite. Two were apparently stepped on by Mama when they were in the middle of hatching, and one just looks like it didn't quite have the energy to pip all the way around the shell. One egg was crushed on the first night by the klutzy Mama.
All four babies and proud Mama hen are in their own mini enclosure out right next to the main chicken coop. They have their own food and water, their own nest, and a little ramp for getting into the nest. The ramp proved necessary after I went out to check on them last night and found the littlest chick sitting forlornly outside the nest box, peeping and unable to climb into the nest to join its foster Mama and foster siblings. I put the chick under Mama for the night, and we took care of the problem today with the ramp.
Now we have to see if Mama does a good job of raising them, and wait to see whether they're hens or roosters! (Crossing my finger that the SLW is a hen, because I'd like to have one!)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Broody Hen Update
I've had chickens for a little over a year now, from chicks through to full grown hens. When I first acquired my five "sexed" chicks, I hoped all five would be female. With an 80-90% accuracy rate, I knew it was a risk one wouldn't be. I didn't have any idea how to tell if one was a rooster, though. "How do you know?" There's a lot of learning that goes on in raising any animals, and the "Well, how do you know?" is a question I keep running across and then answering.
Early on, I had one chicken that was bigger than the rest, who developed a comb and wattles early, and who, sadly, was the friendliest of the bunch. I harbored suspicions that it was a rooster, though I was hoping it wasn't. My friend Tonya, who has dozens of chickens and is quite an expert, took one look at the photo I sent her and said, "That's a MAN, baby." Sigh. You "know" because of those signs, plus the fact that his legs were thicker early on and had little spots where his spurs would eventually grow. That, and he eventually did crow. Luckily, I found a woman north of me who wanted a Buff Orpington rooster to go with her hens, and who had a Rhode Island Red hen to trade. Sweet! Drove to Woodland, made a clandestine poultry swap in the parking lot of the Safeway feeling like a cop was going to bust me at any moment, and went home with "Eeyore", as my then-three-year-old dubbed the hen.
Fast forward to now. I've heard of hens going broody, and I knew what it meant technically, but I didn't know how to tell if my hens were doing it. Going "broody" means that the hen has decided she has a clutch of eggs she must hatch. For many, it's a bad thing as it means she will stop laying eggs and do nothing but sit about on her nest all day, pecking and making noise at any intruders. I knew you could break a hen of being broody by giving her a bath, or forcing her to stay in a wire cage for several days without a nest to sit on. But I still didn't really know what it LOOKED like.
Then I noticed that every time I opened the egg door on our coop, there was a hen on a nest. And when I reached under her to see if she had eggs there, she pecked at me and hissed. That was new. The next two days, I noticed we only had four hens in the run, and the fifth was sitting determinedly on her golf balls, trying to hatch them. Well. That's broody.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I went in search of fertile eggs for her. Without a rooster, my girls only lay dud eggs. I found a gal through the local Chicken List (http://groups.yahoo.com/PDXbackyardchix) who had fertile eggs and came highly recommended. I'd hoped for some Buff Orpington and maybe some likely frizzle eggs, but no dice. I just had her send me a dozen basically random eggs. Didn't know this, but apparently you can gather the eggs and not have a hen on them for days or even a week, and then incubate them and they'll be fine. That means she can mail them to folks, and she mailed them to me. They showed up all individually wrapped in bubble wrap and packed in styrofoam peanuts, and all were safe and sound and took about 24 hours in transit because she is only 30 or so miles south of me. Getting them under the hen was a little interesting, but once she understood that I was putting something BACK, she seemed perfectly content, even happy about it.
That worked for a day, but on the second morning she went out to get some food and water with the rest of the hens, and then apparently didn't beat one of the other hens back to the full nest. Stupid other hen laid a 13th egg in the full nest, AND made the broody hen sit on the wrong nest. Ack! This resulted in my husband having to pull out the table saw and nail gun and build an Emergency BroodyBox. It's merely a 3'x4' wood frame with no bottom and a wood frame lid, all screened in with chicken wire except the back, where there's a sliding wood panel I can use to access the back of the nest to see how things are progressing. The lid is hinged with some old salvaged door hinges and held shut by a very attractive and high-tech C clamp. The reason it has no bottom is that we put it on our concrete patio and lined it with straw. Nothing can dig through concrete, and it's too heavy for a raccoon to lift. Inside that she has her own water and food (though she of course won't eat or drink much) and she has her own nest box located back against the wood back and sufficiently far away from wire on all sides to prevent raccoons from reaching in.
So far so good with the BroodyBox. Only hitch has been that somehow she managed to actually squash one of the eggs; I reached under her today to check it out and discovered a squashed up shell stuck in her feathers, and the other half of the squashed up shell in the nest. I'm hoping it was the one Stupid Hen laid as the 13th egg, as their shells seem to have been running on the thin side lately anyway, and it would have been an infertile egg. I won't know for sure until 2 1/2 more weeks pass!
Early on, I had one chicken that was bigger than the rest, who developed a comb and wattles early, and who, sadly, was the friendliest of the bunch. I harbored suspicions that it was a rooster, though I was hoping it wasn't. My friend Tonya, who has dozens of chickens and is quite an expert, took one look at the photo I sent her and said, "That's a MAN, baby." Sigh. You "know" because of those signs, plus the fact that his legs were thicker early on and had little spots where his spurs would eventually grow. That, and he eventually did crow. Luckily, I found a woman north of me who wanted a Buff Orpington rooster to go with her hens, and who had a Rhode Island Red hen to trade. Sweet! Drove to Woodland, made a clandestine poultry swap in the parking lot of the Safeway feeling like a cop was going to bust me at any moment, and went home with "Eeyore", as my then-three-year-old dubbed the hen.
Fast forward to now. I've heard of hens going broody, and I knew what it meant technically, but I didn't know how to tell if my hens were doing it. Going "broody" means that the hen has decided she has a clutch of eggs she must hatch. For many, it's a bad thing as it means she will stop laying eggs and do nothing but sit about on her nest all day, pecking and making noise at any intruders. I knew you could break a hen of being broody by giving her a bath, or forcing her to stay in a wire cage for several days without a nest to sit on. But I still didn't really know what it LOOKED like.
Then I noticed that every time I opened the egg door on our coop, there was a hen on a nest. And when I reached under her to see if she had eggs there, she pecked at me and hissed. That was new. The next two days, I noticed we only had four hens in the run, and the fifth was sitting determinedly on her golf balls, trying to hatch them. Well. That's broody.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I went in search of fertile eggs for her. Without a rooster, my girls only lay dud eggs. I found a gal through the local Chicken List (http://groups.yahoo.com/PDXbackyardchix) who had fertile eggs and came highly recommended. I'd hoped for some Buff Orpington and maybe some likely frizzle eggs, but no dice. I just had her send me a dozen basically random eggs. Didn't know this, but apparently you can gather the eggs and not have a hen on them for days or even a week, and then incubate them and they'll be fine. That means she can mail them to folks, and she mailed them to me. They showed up all individually wrapped in bubble wrap and packed in styrofoam peanuts, and all were safe and sound and took about 24 hours in transit because she is only 30 or so miles south of me. Getting them under the hen was a little interesting, but once she understood that I was putting something BACK, she seemed perfectly content, even happy about it.
That worked for a day, but on the second morning she went out to get some food and water with the rest of the hens, and then apparently didn't beat one of the other hens back to the full nest. Stupid other hen laid a 13th egg in the full nest, AND made the broody hen sit on the wrong nest. Ack! This resulted in my husband having to pull out the table saw and nail gun and build an Emergency BroodyBox. It's merely a 3'x4' wood frame with no bottom and a wood frame lid, all screened in with chicken wire except the back, where there's a sliding wood panel I can use to access the back of the nest to see how things are progressing. The lid is hinged with some old salvaged door hinges and held shut by a very attractive and high-tech C clamp. The reason it has no bottom is that we put it on our concrete patio and lined it with straw. Nothing can dig through concrete, and it's too heavy for a raccoon to lift. Inside that she has her own water and food (though she of course won't eat or drink much) and she has her own nest box located back against the wood back and sufficiently far away from wire on all sides to prevent raccoons from reaching in.
So far so good with the BroodyBox. Only hitch has been that somehow she managed to actually squash one of the eggs; I reached under her today to check it out and discovered a squashed up shell stuck in her feathers, and the other half of the squashed up shell in the nest. I'm hoping it was the one Stupid Hen laid as the 13th egg, as their shells seem to have been running on the thin side lately anyway, and it would have been an infertile egg. I won't know for sure until 2 1/2 more weeks pass!
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Random Report
There's a local radio station that plays something called the "Random Report". And it is random, as is their musical selection. Probably explains why I like the station. Anyway, I'm often given to making random reports as well...and they look something like this:
Mint Ice Cream
Verdict - Not very much like storebought mint ice cream, not even like the "All Natural" storebought mint ice cream. It is green, even without additional coloring. I liked it, though I found it took a bit of adjustment. It tastes like a mint plant. Not like mint extract, not like mint candy, but like a mint plant. It's good, but chlorophyll-esque, which might put off some folks. It was soundly rejected by my four year old. Husband liked it, except he spit out the chocolate I added. Best friend tasted it, and proceeded to finish off the remainder of the container, so I assume she also approved. She did comment that the texture was good and smooth. Yay for first ice cream efforts! Next up...fresh strawberry ice cream made with my own strawberries! And then perhaps some rosemary lemon sorbet.
Deer Repellent
The repellent seems to have been a success. Whether it was the "100% Dried Blood" stakes or the spray, there's been no new damage this week. I will re-spray the plants weekly and hope to simply encourage the deer to eat elsewhere. Our neighbor says his garden is pretty much decimated, so while I feel badly about that, it does kind of let me know that I am making the deer pick tastier salad bars. Oh, and the whole idea that the concoction gets better upon ripening in the sun? If by "better" they mean "smells like something ate it, threw it up, rolled in it and then died", that'd be accurate.
Broody Hen
I have a hen who has decided she's going to be a Momma. Without my intervention, this is an impossibility for a couple of reasons. First, we have no rooster, so we have only infertile eggs which will never, ever hatch no matter how long the hen sits on them. And second, she's actually sitting on a couple of golf balls.
Okay, for those of you who don't know chickens, that might need some explanation. Yes, hens do lay eggs without having a rooster present. That's all hens are built for: eating, sleeping, pooping, and laying eggs. Good layers lay approximately one egg per day for several years. Poor layers lay a few a week for several years. They are not smart critters, though...the golf balls are there as a prompt to let them know where to lay their eggs.
Having a rooster present does several things for a flock of chickens including providing some protection from predators, but primarily it's how the eggs become fertile and available for hatching. However, most chickens have been bred to NOT sit on their eggs, so they wouldn't hatch out without help from humans anyway. Every once in a while, though, a hen goes "broody" like mine. She thinks she's building up a pile of eggs to sit on, and she pecks me when I open the egg door to gather the eggs, and refuses to get off the nest. What to do with a broody hen? You can give them a bath and remove them from the coop for a few days, and that usually breaks the broody cycle. You can wait it out, though while they are broody they aren't laying, so if you miss the eggs you'll want to choose another option. Or you can do as I'm attempting to do: give her some actual fertile eggs to sit on and see what kind of a momma she really can be. More reports on this later, if I acquire some eggs while she's still broody.
The Bees Knees
The bees continue to fascinate and amuse me. They have now managed to attach the first three combs nearest the observation window all the way down the window itself. They've got six open bars towards the back they haven't yet touched, and the rest have comb built or being built. Watching them create the comb is really something. The comb is created by young worker bees, who secrete the wax between their bodily plates on their abdomens, and then chew it before packing it into place where it needs to be. Really industrious little geometricians! So far the edges of the combs aren't full, so I can't see exactly what's going to be brood and what's nectar and honey at the moment, but shouldn't be long. I do wish I'd gotten another hive up and going this year, but next year for sure!
One thing I love watching the bees do is "sweep". They get busy on the floor of the hive and make little scooping, kicking motions with their front two legs, sweeping junk and dust out of their way. I am not entirely sure what they're actually trying to accomplish, but it looks for all the world like they're simply sweeping the floor.
Mint Ice Cream
Verdict - Not very much like storebought mint ice cream, not even like the "All Natural" storebought mint ice cream. It is green, even without additional coloring. I liked it, though I found it took a bit of adjustment. It tastes like a mint plant. Not like mint extract, not like mint candy, but like a mint plant. It's good, but chlorophyll-esque, which might put off some folks. It was soundly rejected by my four year old. Husband liked it, except he spit out the chocolate I added. Best friend tasted it, and proceeded to finish off the remainder of the container, so I assume she also approved. She did comment that the texture was good and smooth. Yay for first ice cream efforts! Next up...fresh strawberry ice cream made with my own strawberries! And then perhaps some rosemary lemon sorbet.
Deer Repellent
The repellent seems to have been a success. Whether it was the "100% Dried Blood" stakes or the spray, there's been no new damage this week. I will re-spray the plants weekly and hope to simply encourage the deer to eat elsewhere. Our neighbor says his garden is pretty much decimated, so while I feel badly about that, it does kind of let me know that I am making the deer pick tastier salad bars. Oh, and the whole idea that the concoction gets better upon ripening in the sun? If by "better" they mean "smells like something ate it, threw it up, rolled in it and then died", that'd be accurate.
Broody Hen
I have a hen who has decided she's going to be a Momma. Without my intervention, this is an impossibility for a couple of reasons. First, we have no rooster, so we have only infertile eggs which will never, ever hatch no matter how long the hen sits on them. And second, she's actually sitting on a couple of golf balls.
Okay, for those of you who don't know chickens, that might need some explanation. Yes, hens do lay eggs without having a rooster present. That's all hens are built for: eating, sleeping, pooping, and laying eggs. Good layers lay approximately one egg per day for several years. Poor layers lay a few a week for several years. They are not smart critters, though...the golf balls are there as a prompt to let them know where to lay their eggs.
Having a rooster present does several things for a flock of chickens including providing some protection from predators, but primarily it's how the eggs become fertile and available for hatching. However, most chickens have been bred to NOT sit on their eggs, so they wouldn't hatch out without help from humans anyway. Every once in a while, though, a hen goes "broody" like mine. She thinks she's building up a pile of eggs to sit on, and she pecks me when I open the egg door to gather the eggs, and refuses to get off the nest. What to do with a broody hen? You can give them a bath and remove them from the coop for a few days, and that usually breaks the broody cycle. You can wait it out, though while they are broody they aren't laying, so if you miss the eggs you'll want to choose another option. Or you can do as I'm attempting to do: give her some actual fertile eggs to sit on and see what kind of a momma she really can be. More reports on this later, if I acquire some eggs while she's still broody.
The Bees Knees
The bees continue to fascinate and amuse me. They have now managed to attach the first three combs nearest the observation window all the way down the window itself. They've got six open bars towards the back they haven't yet touched, and the rest have comb built or being built. Watching them create the comb is really something. The comb is created by young worker bees, who secrete the wax between their bodily plates on their abdomens, and then chew it before packing it into place where it needs to be. Really industrious little geometricians! So far the edges of the combs aren't full, so I can't see exactly what's going to be brood and what's nectar and honey at the moment, but shouldn't be long. I do wish I'd gotten another hive up and going this year, but next year for sure!
One thing I love watching the bees do is "sweep". They get busy on the floor of the hive and make little scooping, kicking motions with their front two legs, sweeping junk and dust out of their way. I am not entirely sure what they're actually trying to accomplish, but it looks for all the world like they're simply sweeping the floor.
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