#poultry2019

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The young chickens are starting to lay! Little mini-eggs while they're young.

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J is still coming up with new ways to modify the chicken coop to make the birds happier.

They had three roost bars, with enough linear space to comfortably house 16 or so birds (we only have 12), but there was squabbling each evening. Our three older hens would spread themselves out and bully the younger ladies, so that the 8 young hens would end up crammed together on one roost. Now we have 4 roosting bars, at different heights, and chicken bedtime is quieter! In theory, we could now fit more birds, too, if we wanted to add more later...

The high & low bars makes the coop more accessible for us and allow the chickens some choices. The low one, J figured, will also come in handy as the old ladies age and might have trouble flying up to the high bars. They're only 3 or 4 now, but they're lifers, never headed for the stew pot, because they're my brother in law's birds and he's attached to them.

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Here's how the coop is coming along. I think it's pretty overbuilt, but J is having fun doing it "right", with the stud walls and floor joists enough for both of us to jump up and down on.

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Tried to breed Daffodil and Lily today, but they were not having it. Will try at least one of them again in a couple of days...I only really want 1 litter at a time in the summer heat, esp. now that all the young does have proven they know what to do with babies.

In other farm news, we got a Craigslist rooster today. Not a free dear-god-get-him-out-of-here jerk, but a nice sweet 12 week old Orpington dude I paid 15 bucks for. I'll try to get a picture of him tomorrow. He's black, basically, but with that green sheen like motor oil on water. I know nothing about chicken color genetics, but he's a buff/chocolate cross. We like our buff Orpington, so we hope we'll get a similar temperament with him. He's been handled a fair bit, and both his parents are nice. His father was fucking MAJESTIC, so I'm looking forward to that. No name yet, but then our bird naming is slack.

The coop *should* be done tomorrow, then once the paint fumes air out we can go get our teenage hens from our friends' house, and integrate them all into one big flock.

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I love watching our chickens putter around the yard. They're out there doing things, getting chicken stuff done! They're great.

But our buff Orpington has been eating eggs, and I just saw her go past the window and thought, "That bitch."

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Chicken drama continues unabated around here. We brought the young girls home the other day, despite the new coop not being done, because possums got a couple more at our friends' house 😞 So they've been in a large rabbit cage under the small coop, same as we did with Benny*, so everybody can get used to each other with minimal injury.

The rooster immediately went, oh, ladies who won't run me off? Ok I'm with y'all. The older hens were totally disinterested in the young ones. Then today we let them out, and shit went down. Young ladies don't want to leave the coop run, since it's all they've known here so far. Benny starts biting young birds and has to be run off with a broom repeatedly - do you like them or not, dude? Then the gold girl stops by the coop to lay her egg, and on the way out decides to beat up some babies, too. I had to corner her with the broom, pick her up, & toss her away! I was surprised since she's usually so docile/seemingly empty-headed. Young ladies are occasionally attacking each other. It's wild out there.

Late in the afternoon, the young ones did leave the coop run some, and checked out some of the yard. Special chicken hasn't caused any problems, and in fact is tolerating Benny better. But she has a lot of Opinions, and aired them loudly all day. Ralph initially wouldn't let anyone else in the coop tonight, but eventually they all went in the little run, and J shut that door. We checked back an hour ago, and all birds had gone in the coop to sleep, thank the gods. They're all about as far away from Ralph as they can get, though 😄

Hopeful that tomorrow goes better. I know they've got a whole new social structure to invent, I'm just trying to keep anyone from getting hurt/traumatized. All while also teaching my herding dog that yes, "don't herd the chickens unless I ask you to" rules DO apply to all the new chickens as well.

*J named the rooster Benny. It's a conceptual mashup of 'Benny and the Jets' with the Jets from 'Westside Story', since we figured he'll be leading the gang. J says it's short for Benvolio, or Benjamin. I say Benito.

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New rooster is in a spare rabbit cage in the chicken coop enclosure for a couple of days, so he and the big girls can get to know each other without being able to damage one another. The ladies have mounted a protest about this stranger in their midst. Noisy hens all day, and the gold one & Ralph refused to go to bed. Luckily it's easy to move a sleepy chicken, so I just picked them up off the outdoor roost & the fence, respectively, and popped them in through the coop door. Over more chickeny protestations, of course.

Tomorrow or the next night, we'll go out when they're all asleep and sneak the rooster into the coop. Then they'll all wake up and come out together in the morning, hopefully believing they're all one flock.