Keepin' Up With the Chickens

For all two of you who have been keeping up with my chicken adventures, you'll be glad to know I have updates!  I'm sure you have so many questions, like, "Just how many chickens do you have, anyway?" and "Have you looked into medication for this problem?"  Hopefully, I can answer these and more today.

You may remember our little group of chicks that we hatched from eggs in an incubator.  They are now about eight and a half weeks old now and we have whittled them down to three chicks.  By "whittling" I mean giving them away, since the alternative meaning would be really gross.  We gave away Penny and Smoky because we felt 99% certain they were roosters.  We also think Checkers and Uno are roosters, too, leaving Nugget as the only female we managed to get out of the whole batch.



Uno

Checkers

Nugget.
Yes, she has a beard and fluffy ears.  She's a little sensitive about it, so don't bring it up around her.  I keep telling her it's fine, it's just an Easter Egger genetics thing, but she doesn't listen.  Ah....teenagers.

You must be thinking, "Why don't you just keep the roosters?"  That's a whole story by itself, but the main reasons most people don't want roosters are:

1. They crow.
2. They fight with each other, sometimes to the death.
3. They have a weapon--a spur--that grows on the back of the legs, and they'll use it on you if they don't like you.
4. They don't lay eggs.

Now, these are not necessarily all my reasons, but they are good ones.  There are also benefits to having one rooster per 8-10 hens:

1. They protect their ladies from predators.
2. Hens are happier and lay eggs better with a gentleman around.
3. They can be just as friendly as a mouse if they have the right temperament and are raised by hand.

We recently sold Benjamin, our bantam Old English Game rooster because of reason number 3 on the first list.  He was becoming mean, mean, mean...even drawing blood a few times on Seth.

Too bad he was so purty.  He had to go though.  Not to mention, I have Checkers and Uno, who are completely sweet and docile and will let a child carry them around the yard, who can fulfill their rooster-ly duties in another month or so.

We still have his little harem of ladies out in the barn.  They have all finally started laying.  Between the 7 of them, we get three or four eggs a day (little eggs, since they're little chickens!).

The Seven Dwarves.  Eating scratch feed I threw down for them. 

And then.....

Let's see, that's three teenagers plus seven hens...that's 10 chickens we have living out in the barn.  But wait!  There's more!

We have babies too.

They live in the house, in one of those big blue storage bins.  Sometimes, they get to play in the yard. They're extremely cute.  Check them out:

Charlotte. She's a New Hampshire Red.  She is very sweet, learned how to fly out of the brooder very quickly, and will one day be a rust-red-colored chicken.

Mei Ling.  A Silkie. Hopers picked her out.  The tiniest little chick you ever held, she feels like holding a dime--a warm, flapping dime.  One day, she'll be a little ball of fluff.  Kind of like she is now.

Qi Qi ("chee-chee"). Also a Silkie.  Noodle picked her out.  Silkies are known for being good pets, their funny looks, having an extra toe on each foot, and not being able to fly because of their unusual feathers.

Charlie and Violet.  These two are Barred Plymouth Rocks.  They look almost identical, and are the same size, except that Charlie has white eye makeup.

The Golden Laced Wyandottes.  These two are older than the rest of the chicks by a week (they're 3 weeks old).  They balk at being held, but will one day be beautiful with lacy black and gold patterned feathers.  Meanwhile, they're scraggly, skittish, and I haven't come up any good names for them.  Any suggestions?

Miss Comet.  A Golden Comet.  She is super sweet and calm and I know she's a girl for sure because boys of this breed are an entirely different color. YAY!

So now you have the low-down on the chickens.  That brings us to a total of 18.  For now....
I met a lady the other day who had 49.  That makes me totally sane in comparison, right? No need for medication yet!

Although, I did see a Chocolate Cuckoo Maran chick online that....

*Ahem*

Stay tuned for more chicken adventures!