Field trip to the backyard

We took the girls on a field trip today!  We set up our larger dog crate in the backyard, and we left the tray out of the bottom so the chickens could get some grass and dirt in between their toes.  They were really confused at first and stayed in a tight flock, but they figured out pretty quickly that being outside is way more exciting than being inside.

Here's Oneita, wide-eyed and curious:

Here's Mr. Helen:

Here's Helen and Bernice looking at each other funny:

Here's Mary Lou:

Here's Viola (you can see how she's getting some tiny reddish spots on her feathers near her tail):

The chickens are already pretty used to my dog, so we let her outside first.  She circled and sniffed the crate.  Then she started howling at the chickens, which is Paisley's obnoxious way of saying, "I want to play with you!"

Then we let the big dogs out and they really don't have much experience with the chickens, so they were glued to the crate.  Bailey seemed content to just watch them wander around... until one of the chickens squawked, and then he was really concerned!  Sophie on the other hand was staring them down like she was getting hungry.  We're going to have to keep a close eye on her.

Eventually they settled down, though.

It was a really fun day, but with all the rain expected this week, it will probably be a while before we can take them on another outdoor field trip.

Mr. Helen's Comb

We've started calling our Partridge Rock Mr. Helen.

We had the family over for Easter and of course we showed everyone our chickens.  My brother (the one who got a dozen chickens the same week we got ours) commented on Helen's comb and said his Partridge Rocks don't have those.  His suggestion that we might have a rooster just burst my little chicken bubble, and I told him he was a liar and that our sweet Helen is perfectly normal - and female! - thank you very much.  Here she is:

I've become a little bit obsessed with trying to figure out if we have a roo in our group.  Mainly I'm just curious, because these chickens are so interesting and there's so much to learn about them.  But I'm also worried, because if we actually do have a roo, we have to get rid of him!  The city has rules about keeping backyard chickens, and roosters are too noisy to live in town.  I don't want to get rid of sweet Mr. Helen!

We've done some research and we're having a hard time finding a definitive way to sex a 4- or 5-week-old chicken.  Everyone online has his or her own opinion about chicken development, and some of the information is contradictory.  For example, if a chicken's comb is more pinkish, then you probably have a roo, and if it's more yellow, then you probably have a pullet.  Helen's is a color sort of in between yellow and pink.

The comb of a healthy chicken, whether it's male or female, is bright red.  And a pink or red comb is often a sign that the hen is ready to start laying eggs.  So if Helen's comb turns pinker, it might mean she's actually a he, or it might mean she's developed enough that she can start laying soon.  This is all very unhelpful, so we have no idea what to expect.  We do know that when a Partridge Rock chicken is fully grown, the hens and roosters both have large single combs.

I've also read online that roos stand up taller than pullets (which Helen is demonstrating in the second picture in this post) and that they have thicker legs and longer toes than pullets (check out Helen's big legs in the third picture).  Despite everything I've seen online, I refuse to believe Helen is a roo.  Partridge Rocks are supposed to have big combs, so I think mine is perfectly normal and my brother's are just late bloomers.

Either way, it's my brother's fault.

These chickens are such hams

I've been trying to get close-ups of the chickens, and I keep taking the most hilarious pictures!  I thought we were raising chickens, but they act like such hams in front of the camera!

Oneita follows my camera everywhere and stares it down.  You have no idea how many out-of-focus pictures I have of Oneita's face right up in front of the camera.  And she bobs her little head around so much, it's so hard to get a good picture of her!  But I got an amazing one of her earlier:

Now imagine her making that face at you and leaning in only a couple inches from your nose.  We've had some serious stare-downs recently.  Oneita does not back down.

Oneita is really entertaining, but Bernice takes the most beautiful pictures.  She's an amazing model.

I love the little wispy fuzz she has on the top of her head!  Soon she'll be covered in her adult feathers, so I'm enjoying the baby fuzz while it lasts.  Now look, she's getting mad at me for making fun of her hairdo:

Now look at Oneita and Bernice having a conversation on top of their fig branch:

I imagine they're saying, "Are you talkin' to me?  Are YOU talkin' to ME?!"

Here's Helen.  She doesn't look very happy about having her picture taken.

Here's Grace.  She's timid, but she's so sweet.  (Unlike Oneita.)

These girls are so funny!

New brooder

The girls are growing up fast!  They've already outgrown their original brooder, so we set up our old dog crate to give them more space.  Here's their new setup:

As soon as we put them in the dog crate, the girls immediately started hopping over each other and scratching around, and they made a mess of the place fast!  We came back to check on them and they had kicked half of the bedding out onto the floor.  So my mom put some cardboard up on the sides, which seems to have fixed that problem so far.  The top of the cardboard also made a great spot to prop up a new perch (pruned from our fig tree).  I know they can jump that high, but I have yet to see them jump up to the perch by themselves.  They are some messy girls, so when my mom added the cardboard siding, she also hung up the waterer so they can't kick bedding or poo into the water as easily.  Here's a better picture of their setup from inside:

Last week, I said that Oneita was my favorite, and that's because she would step into my hand by herself and let me hold her for a while.  Well apparently Oneita has developed a superiority complex and now she thinks she's top bird!  She's developing quite a brave and bossy personality!  Many of the chicks scatter when you put your hand in the brooder, but not Oneita.  She stands her ground and stares you right in the face.  For example:

Oneita's not afraid of anything.  When the Silver-laced chicks were still fresh, little poofballs, we weren't sure how we were going to tell them apart as they got older.  But just in the last few days, Oneita and Grace's coloring has changed a lot.  Oneita (above) has a more orange beak, and Grace (below) has a much lighter chest and lighter overall coloring.

Oneita and Grace are starting to look very different, but Bernice and Viola look even more alike now.  With their adult feathers coming in, it's much harder to see the dark spot on Viola's head, if it's even still there.  The only way I can really tell them apart now is by their legs and feet.  Viola (left) has normal orange legs.  Bernice (right) has weird dinosaur legs that are light yellow and are almost scaly looking (no offense, Bernice).

Mary Lou has always been the smallest of our flock, but her adult feathers are coming in and they look really beautiful.

Look at Mary Lou modeling her fuzzy boots!  She's been doing a lot better about socializing with us instead of just running and hiding in the corner.  But I think she just tolerates being held instead of actually enjoying it like Oneita and the Ambers.

Helen keeps to herself a lot, so she hasn't really shown us much of her personality yet.  She was originally one of the most social chicks.  She was one of the first to trust my hand when I put it down into the brooder, she allowed us to pick her up, and she liked to perch on the wall of the brooder.  Hopefully she opens back up to us and we get to know her better as she continues growing.

Meet the chicks

SAY CHEESE!!!

We've had our chicks for close to 2 weeks now, and we've gotten to know them a lot better.  Each one has her own personality and individual markings that help us tell them apart.  We thought we would instill some Southern charm on our chicks, so we've named them Bernice, Viola, Oneita, Grace, Helen, and Mary Lou.  Allow me to introduce you to...

Grace (front) and Oneita (back):

These are our two Silver-Laced Wyandottes.  Grace is very shy and is still warming up to us.  She will eat out of your hand, but she's very nervous when you try to pick her up.  Oneita is quite the opposite, though.  She runs straight to your hand instead of away from it and she loves being picked up and held.  She loves to lay down in my hand and I bet she could stay there all day if I would let her.  When I try to set her back down, she backs up onto my arm and lays down again.  (She's my favorite so far, but don't tell the other girls!)

Viola (top left) & Bernice (top right):

These little yellow Amber Links look sweet, but they are really feisty and have big personalities!  Viola has a dark spot on the top of her head, which you can see in this picture because she's leaning down on the left.  This picture is also very representative of their personalities because Viola and Bernice both think they're top bird!  As soon as you take the screen off the top of the brooder, they hop up to the side and perch.  They have the biggest wings and the most gusto, so they are the best jumpers and balancers so far.

Mary Lou:

Mary Lou is our only Dark Brahma and I like to call her Fuzzy Foot.  Her wispy fuzz will turn into fabulous feather boots when she's full grown.  Mary Lou, like Grace, is quite shy.  She will eat out of your hand occasionally, but usually when I stick my hand down into the brooder, the other chicks come running and she just tries to hide behind the waterer.  I've almost given up on trying to pick her up because she turns into a nervous wreck.  What a chicken!  Apparently this type of chicken is known to have a less sociable personality, so I expect her to be a quiet beauty rather than a bossy, in-your-face gal like Viola and Bernice.

Helen (back):

Helen would not cooperate when I was trying to get pictures, so this is the best one I have of her so far, but it gives a great view of the comb forming on the top of her beak.  Helen is our only Partridge Rock and she has more red in her fuzzy feathers than the other girls.  She likes perching on the side of the brooder, but she's not a strong enough jumper yet to get up there by herself.

If you compare these pictures to the originals I posted last week, you can see that the girls have definitely gotten bigger.  When we got them, they were just tiny little poof-balls.  Now they're a little scraggly looking, but that's because their adult feathers are starting to come in.

You can see on Bernice here that she's got some new feathers on her neck and on her back, and her tail feathers and her wings are longer.  The girls are still chicks now, but they will be pullets in a few weeks when they have most of their adult feathers but are still not fully grown.  I've heard that pullets are pretty silly looking, but I guess that's true of most teenagers... (did I just insult my teenage self?).

We got chickens!

Over the last two summers, I've experimented with growing different kinds of vegetables and building my little backyard garden.  It was really enjoyable and I hope I get to fill up my hanging planters again this summer.  But this spring, I have a new experiment: I'm raising different kinds of chickens and building a backyard coop!  I would never attempt this on my own, though.  My mom has been wanting chickens for years, and since my brother went ahead and got himself a dozen baby chicks last week, we refused to be left out and we got ourselves half a dozen.

We got all our supplies from Southern States, including the baby chicks.  These are the items we bought to get started:
  - brooder (which is basically just a big plastic box with sides at least a foot or a foot and a half tall)
  - heat lamp and red-tinted bulb
  - waterer
  - packets of electrolyte and vitamin supplements to mix with water
  - feeder
  - poultry starter feed
  - litter (no - not cat litter!  Litter is what you call the bedding at the bottom of the brooder.  We put pine wood shavings over a couple paper towels.)

Here is their current setup:

Those supplies, along with the six chicks, cost less than $70 from Southern States.  They were selling four different types of chickens: Partridge Rock, Silver-laced Wyandotte, Dark Brahma, and Amber Link.  We got two each of the Silver-laced and the Amber Link, and one each of the Partridge Rock and Dark Brahma.  In the picture, the little yellow ones are the Ambers, the one on the fig branch and the one hiding behind the water are the Silver-laced, the reddish-brown one next to the branch is our Partridge Rock, and the smallest one on the right side is the Brahma (she has fuzzy feet!).

We got the chicks home without incident, but our cat was VERY interested in the strange noises coming from that little cardboard box.  We have frequent checks to make sure the cat hasn't slipped in behind us into the room where the chicks are living.  We also have a screen over the top of the brooder to make sure the chicks can't hop out.  Even though they're still small, they're feisty and they can jump pretty high!  Especially Bernice.  She's the troublemaker.

Here's Bernice:

Look at how she stares at me.  We know she's plotting something.

We're still working on our chicken coop, but they won't move outside for another few weeks.  Until then, we'll all just be getting to know each other.