Success!

It has taken 30 days for these little babies to emerge! We had an emergency about 3/4 of the way through, finding a hairline crack in one of the eggs. We read that we could put some wax on the crack to seal it, so we tried that and hoped for the best. For the next few days we still saw it moving when we candled it, but then we noticed that it had a larger than normal air sac - which can be a bad sign. We were worried, but right at that point was when we had to keep the eggs on lockdown. The last few days are especially important for temperature and humidity, and the slightest variation from taking it out and candling could harm it. So we just had to leave it under her and hope for the best. And wait.

Today Ned came home to find a broken eggshell next to Buffy - and when we reached under her we retrieved another - both of the little ducklings made it! I was a little disappointed that I did not get to see any of the hatching process, but oh well.

Mamma Knows Best

Buffy has impressed us with her mamma instincts. We began with 4 eggs. About a week into the adventure, Buffy cracked one and pushed it out from underneath her. We were disappointed, but took it inside to crack it open and inspect it. The egg was thoroughly rotten! The next day there was another egg which had cracked and been pushed out from under her. When we took it inside to inspect, we found that it wasn't fertilized. Buffy knew that the eggs were duds and kicked them out of the nest so she could focus on the live ones. Amazing!

Buffy Mamma

Buffy is our alpha hen. She has been the flock's fearless leader since Red was re-homed. Every night when the chickens march themselves into the coop to go to bed, Buffy stands guard at the entrance, making sure they all go in before she will follow them up the ramp to go to bed herself. Once nestled into the coop, Miss America will snuggle her head down into Buffy's wing and Buffy will hold her underneath like a mamma hen. She is one of the sweetest and friendliest hens, always one of the first to come running to greet us when we go outside.

A few weeks ago, we noticed Buffy spending more and more time in the nest box. Typically, once a hen lays their egg, they jump up like nothing happened and go back to business. Sometimes the process can take a while - up to an hour - but then afterwards it's back outside. Well, she began spending a couple hours, then entire afternoons, in the nest box. On one such day, she finally came out late afternoon, only to return as soon as she'd eaten her dinner. It had become quite obvious what was going on.

Buffy had, as the term goes, gone broody. Broodiness is the condition where a hen gets the motherly urge and wants to set on her eggs until they hatch (typically 3 weeks). The obvious problem with this, is that her eggs were not fertilized - we have no rooster. She was so desperate to be a mamma hen though, that she was sitting on fake plastic eggs (we put those in the nest boxes so that they know they are supposed to lay there.) It was adorably pathetic - she would take one of the plastic eggs and ever so gently use her beak to push it underneath her. She would also become irritated when we took it away.

Broodiness can supposedly be broken - one such method is dunking the hen in cold water. The temperature shock is supposed to disrupt their hormones and snap them out of it. This is what Ned and I decided we were going to do. Ned, however, apparently changed his mind, because when I came home, he had placed 4 fertilized duck eggs he had gotten off craigslist underneath her in a special private nest he had created in the garage. Oh dear.

Update

It has been nearly a year - and we have had so many chicken adventures I can't even count! Our chicken family has grown - we now have 8 egg laying hens. We have 5 more baby chicks, which we haven't decided whether or not we will keep yet. We have one hen who wants to be a mamma so badly that she was sitting on plastic eggs - so we got some fertilized duck eggs to put underneath her, and she is sitting on those now. Our egg business is up and running with so many orders we can't keep up. It is not profitable - we just about break even, but it is fun nonetheless and we are taking business away from the cruelty of factory farm hen houses where the poor things don't even have enough room to spread out their wings. We raised meat birds last fall - 25 birds which free ranged in our yard and are now in our freezer - the most juicy, flavorful chicken I have eaten. We have become amateur experts on all things chicken, and have even persuaded a couple of friends to begin their own chicken adventures! It has been an eggcellent year and I hope to post more frequently now.

Red

On Sunday we heard a strange noise. My husband ran into the house saying, "what was that?" I said, "I think it might be Red..." Sure enough, we looked under the porch to see the source of the noise. The unmistakable "cock a doodle doo". A rooster crow.

Yes, we have a rooster on our hands. We have suspected for a while, but have been in denial up until more recently. Sunday's crow left no doubt in our minds. She is a He. City ordinances ban roosters where we live. So that means we have to find Red a new home. We will hopefully find someone who wants to have him as a pet; otherwise, we will have to eat him.

We had purchased Red thinking he was a she, but sexing of chickens is only about 90% accurate, and it is very common to get a rooster thrown in the mix. We pretty much knew for sure he was a rooster about a week ago. But we figured - no crowing, no harm. Until Sunday afternoon. And Monday morning. At 5:30 am. Six times in a row. :(

It is a very cute crow - unmistakably a baby crow. Soft and tentative and strange sounding. But definitely a crow. And it was funny - once he learned it he kept doing it several times in a row - like a baby finding it's voice.

We have a potential home for him, several hours away. Red is a rare breed called a Buckeye, and the breed is in danger of going extinct. His potential home is with a flock of Buckeye hens who the owners want to breed him with to perpetuate the breed. I couldn't think of a better home for him! He will have 10 acres and a harem of ladies to breed with. We will find out soon whether or not this will pan out.

We will miss Red. He is very friendly and curious and has much personality. He is also very beautiful with dark auburn feathers that glisten in the sun. It will also be sad to take him away from the rest of his flock, because they are a very tight knit family!

Here the six of them are snuggling in the yard.

Growing girls

Last weekend we went out of town for 4 days. This was the first time our chickens had been left unattended for any length of time. They did fabulous. They were quite self-sufficient, needing no-one to change their food or water the entire time (we did have a neighbor stop by to check). In the midst of that time, our littlest one began to grow! We returned home after our long weekend to find little Susie Q-ty Sussex covered in feathers and much larger than we left her! This was cause for celebration as we were beginning to wonder about her health. She is still quite a bit smaller than the rest, but hopefully she'll catch up eventually. We'll see.

The Finished Coop

Ned putting shingles on

I am pretending to help

The finished coop

The hens have their finished coop. It consists of 3 main sections. First, there is the henhouse, the interior section, which is where they sleep at night, and will be where they lay their eggs. The second section is the main area where they can roam around during the day. The third section is referred to as chicken Guantanamo bay. It is the open area directly under the henhouse. This section is walled with hardware cloth, which is impossible for any predators to get through. If we go out of town, we can can close off the main section (which has larger holed chicken wire) and leave the trap door to chicken Guantanamo bay from the henhouse open. That way the can still get outside and rummage around a bit, but will be safe from predators. Most of the time, all 3 sections are open to them. And if we are home, we let them out entirely to have free range of the yard. This is also a mobile coop, so that every few weeks we can move it to a new section of lawn. This keeps our lawn in good shape and always gives the ladies fresh grass/weeds to munch on.