Chicken Movie for Grayson

My fluffy girls have a new fan. Two-year-old Grayson, son of blogger "frugalmom" at Everyday Happenings of a Frugal Mom, has become quite enchanted with the videos of my spring chicks and has been making his Mama a bit crazy with repeated, persistent requests for: "Chicken movie, chicken movie?" Mama, watch chicken movie?".

To please wee Grayson, and hopefully ease his mom's pain a bit, here's a short, new, chick flick especially for Grayson:


And for the rest of you, who likely grow weary of all my chick talk, if you want to see one really cute little boy, take a look at frugalmom's blog post from February 25th: Just Livin'.

We appreciate your steadfast support, Grayson. The chicks will be signing autographs for you just as soon as I can teach them to hold a pencil.

Fascination with the Bad Girl Room

What a difference a couple days makes.

On Thursday I blogged about how I had to make a smaller section in my chick box to create a "time-out" room for the pecky-pecksters (Barred Rocks) who were mercilessly eye-gouging the baby Black Stars. This little cardboard room has now become *the* desired destination location for all the baby chicks. My twelve girls, all behaving sisterly toward one another for the most part, literally FLOCK to it when I open the little flap, scrabbling and jumping and chirping all the way. Some will even leap over the slower ones in their hurry to get to this small 1' x 2' section.

Once there, they chirp excitedly while pecking and scratching in the pine chips. They've even starting kicking their feet behind them, in that classic hen motion, which sends the chips flying every which way. Any chicks left behind in the other part of the box, due to cat-napping, thermometer observing, wing stretching or other chick pastimes, quickly run to catch up once they notice the mass exodus.

I've tried to make a short video of this...let's see how well I was able to capture the glee:


In other news, we started building our chicken coop today. :-)

And my flock is complete

I find myself strutting with pride this evening - my chick flock is complete. I've got a beautiful bunch of babies.

The devil chicks, formerly known as Barred Rocks, significantly improved their behavior last night and were permitted to return to the well-behaved box with their sisters. While there has been some further pecking, it appears now to be evenly distributed among all of the chicks and not nearly as vicious. That will do for now.

I received a surprise call from a third farm store this morning, telling me they had just received their chicks and they had Araucana/Ameraucana (there seems to be some confusion over this breed) and Buff Orpington pullets, which the two other stores did not.

And so, I make one final introduction this week...
On the left hand side is my fuzzy Araucana/Ameraucana (if you can tell which she is, please speak up) and on the right is my wee little Buff Orpington, my one and only true golden chick:

You can't tell very well in the above photo, but the Araucana/Ameraucana on the left has the cutest little puffy cheek feathers!
Wait! Here is a better shot:

So, day three of life with chicks is now behind us and we've all managed to survive.

This weekend we start work on the chicken coop!

Day 2 as Chicken Mom

I only got up three times last night to check on my new chicks. All baby chicks survived the night, but they were very quiet and drowsy through this morning and into early afternoon and I was worried. One had pasty butt, but nothing too extreme that a little wet paper towel couldn't manage.

Now, when I first began envisioning my flock some eight months ago, I pictured having all my chickies arriving at one time, kind of like at a birthday party. This has not been the case. Wednesday (yesterday), I purchased my first six chicks, three separate breeds, at one store and needed to wait until the next day (today) to purchase another six, three other separate breeds, at another store. Mother Nature again, however, chose to play by her own rules and the Araucanas I expected today were not in the shipment. They aren't expected now until next week some time.

That's ok, we came home with four beautiful new chicks, bringing our total flock number up to ten. Maybe I'll still get two Araucana (not Americauna, like I had originally thought) next week when they finally decide to be born.

Here are the four new babes who joined our family today:
Two Rhode Island Reds (modeling hands courtesy of Alana, my oldest son's girlfriend):

and two Barred Rocks (modeling hands courtesy of my son, Teagan):

After a bit of jostling, everyone seemed to settle in fine together.
Eating, like good girls:

Doing chick investigation:

And everyone seemed to be getting along fine.

Until late this afternoon.

Nobody warned me that Barred Rock chicks are the chicks from HELL.

For some reason, these two brand-spanking new Barred Rock chicks have decided to zero in on my two, older Black Star chicks and have been - literally - pecking the crap out of them. For example, I watched in horror tonight as the bigger Barred Rock gal saw one of the Black Stars and ran (yes, chicks run), the length of the box for the sole purpose of biting the Black Star right under her little eye. The little Black Star is screeching in pain and running around the box trying to free herself, to no avail, from this piranha hen. It was awful. And it kept happening, again and again and again. Why specifically these two chicks are the target is completely beyond me.

I finally wound up dividing the chick box into two parts with cardboard this evening, sending the two Barred Rock Beasts into time-out exile. Bad chicks!!

Here is another picture of the Devil Chicks, just in case you should ever run into them on the street. I'll let you guess who the Supreme Evil One is:

I've got me some babies!

I am the very proud momma to six baby chicks!

Allow me to introduce our new arrivals (handsome modeling hands courtesy of Aidan):
Two Silver-Laced Wyandottes:

Two Black Sex Link (a.k.a. Black Stars):

and my surprise of the day...
Two White Crested Black Polish (the Light Brahmas didn't hatch, so I took a leap of faith on a breed I know very little about. Daring or stupid? We shall see!) Look at their funny little puffball heads:

Learning to drink:

Sleeping, not dead:


On the drive home, there was quite a bit of bickering going on in the chick box, so I thought it was a good time, while I had a captive audience, to establish some ground rules:

House Rules
1. No dying
2. No pecking our sisters in the eyes (not everyone has agreed to this yet)
3. No sleeping face first in the water
4. No eating the pine chip bedding (even with paper towels on top, they seem to be obsessed)
5. Drink lots of water every day
6. No dying! (this one's important enough to reiterate)
7. No turning into roosters

And here are my girls getting used to their new home. (Please note at least one of the house rules already being broken):


The cool chicks hang out by the thermometer:

Roxy is fascinated (I'm keeping a very close eye on her):


Another six arrive tomorrow!

Picture me, smiling *really* big right now. :-)

Good things come to those who wait

...and wait.

This morning I went, with my oldest son and his girlfriend, to pick up my chicks at our local farm store and....they weren't there! :-(

Surprise of surprises, nature doesn't work on a precisely timed schedule. Turns out, the little babies didn't hatch, so the hatchery had nothing to ship! I was really disappointed! But...what am I gonna do? I'm gonna wait, that's what.

Funny little obsessive me, though, I called the hatchery personally a few minutes ago (rather than rely on the people at the farm store), and the lady who answered told me the chicks are "hatching away" right now and will be delivered for sure tomorrow...So, possibly tomorrow, if nature agrees, chicks will come to live with me.

One other disappointing piece of news the farm store gave me this morning...I was hoping for 1 Buff Orpington and 2 Black Australorp pullets that they had previously advertised they would have, however, they told me today that they will only be receiving straight run chicks instead of pullets for these breeds. This means I would only have a 50/50 chance of getting a hen with the chicks I choose. Same with the Ameraucanas, too. Ugh. That was one line my husband drew with me: no roosters. I don't think I should take a chance, do you? So, now I'm thinking about getting a couple of Black Sex Link pullets - they are a cross between a Rhode Island Red rooster and a Barred Rock hen, but I've not heard anything much - good or bad - about this breed.

I just unplugged my brooder and dumped out the vitamin/electrolyte water (said to reduce the stress of shipping) in the waterer. I finally figured out how to get the brooder to a perfect 95 degrees...so everything's ready to go. I'll make up a fresh batch of water tomorrow and try again.

So, I have no baby pictures to share today, but here are some cool shots of what I hope my babies will look like when they grow up. :-)





Amerauca-na hen







Barred Rock hen









Black Australorp hen











Black Sex Link hen
















Buff Orpington hen





Light Brahma hen













Rhode Island Red hen














Silver-Laced Wyandotte hen

Waiting

Everything's ready.

Tomorrow my babies come.

Sitting on the fence...

Guess what? I'm getting chicks tomorrow.
Or maybe I'm not.
As is pretty common with me, I, once again, find myself trapped in indecision.

Here's my current plan, based on my two, local farm & feed stores' chick delivery schedule:

Tomorrow, 3/04:
2x Silver-laced Wyandottes
2x Black Australorp
2x either Buff Orpington or Light Brahma (not sure yet)

Wednesday, 3/05:
My birthday. Damn, I'm getting old.

Thursday, 3/06:
2x Rhode Island Red
2x Araucana
2x Barred Rock

This is where the indecision comes in. As most of you know, a little more than one month ago, I moved to a rural property that has, to my knowledge, never had chickens on it before. After some research (and determining my own personal feelings), I decided *not* to purchase chicks through any of the more well-known mail-order hatcheries - all very far away from Oregon - because I wanted to limit the amount of stress "my" new babies would undergo during shipping. I also wanted to buy as locally as possible.

So...I have been talking to two of my local farm and feed stores, anticipating the arrival of my chicks tomorrow and Thursday. Since everything I had read led me to believe that all chicks are routinely vaccinated against Marek's disease, I had assumed these hatcheries supplying my farm and feed stores would vaccinate, too. Wrong-o!!! Neither of the hatcheries (Dunlap in Idaho or Phinney in Walla, Walla, Washington) will be vaccinating prior to shipping to the stores!

I have also now missed my window of opportunity to buy from the well-known hatcheries because they are now sold-out (except for cockerels) until pretty late in the season.

While I'm not anxious to vaccinate these babes myself, having never done anything like this before, I would do it if I had to, however, everything I've read says that you need to vaccinate them within a day of being hatched or the vaccine isn't effective.

Old timers are telling me that if the property has not had chickens before and I'm not planning to show my birds, then there is no need to vaccinate. Further, there are numerous strains of Marek's and the vaccine only protects against one strain - so my birds still may be vulnerable. Even others tell me they have never had their birds vaccinated and they have never had any trouble. Then why the fuss over this thing called Marek's?

Is my fear really about something else entirely and not at all about a poultry disease? Why am I so dang nervous and uncertain about my first venture into chick-rearing? Is it that I don't trust myself? That maybe none of the knowledge that I've acquired in my lifetime will actually help me keep these little guys safe and sound? I really don't want this event to be a deadly disaster for my chicks! "Suck it up", I say to myself in a stern voice. "Be the farmgirl you believe yourself to be, make the best decision you can, and deal with it!"

But then there's the part about me getting chicks in two separate batches, two days apart, from two different feed stores. Is this a problem? (Repeat earlier mantra to myself ...the one about sucking it up.)

In the mean time, I aspire to:
...be farm-smart like Robin at Season's Greetings Farm
...have morning tea with my hens like Twinville at Laughing Orca Ranch...
...have the sense to know that an impacted crop can be helped with olive oil and sand like DeconstructingVenus at A Journey in your Dreams...
...take gratuitous chicken photos like Michelle at Sugarcreekstuff...
...tell wonderful chicken anecdotes like El at Fast Grow the Weeds ...
...and figure out how to convince my hens to assist in making awesome compost like Meg and Kelly have at Future House Farm...

In parting, I leave you with my own gratuitous photo...of my Easter wreath:

What is it made of, you ask? Why, eggs, of course! :-)

Snip, Snip

Roxy here. One last time. Yesterday was a baaaad day.
I totally forgot it was Friday and got really excited when mom asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. A ride? Of COURSE I wanted to go for a ride! I live and breathe for riding in my truck! It was even more exciting, though, because Teagan, my mom's oldest son - whom I adore - was going for a ride, too!

Oh, fool that I am, I jumped right into my truck and off we went. Straight to the GROOMERS.

I knew when we walked in that this wasn't where I wanted to be.

I tried to wedge myself between Teagan's legs and the door, hoping nobody would notice I was there. Didn't work - they totally saw me.

I tried to make woeful eye contact with people on the other side of the door. That didn't work either:

I concentrated really hard and tried to wish myself to the other side, but I was too scattered, by this point, and couldn't pull it off:

And so, there was nothing I could do when this laughing lady scooped me up and told me to wave goodbye to mom. Wave goodbye? Like I had a choice:

With one last look at me through the window, she left me! My mom actually left me:

When mom came back to get me, the lady with the scissors wasn't finished yet. I was trying really hard to hold still. She was snipping around places that were making me uncomfortable:

Finally, it was all over. I was a little peeved at Mom when I saw her, but she started making all those familiar noises that I know and love and, of course, I forgave her right away:

And so, that's all there was to it, really. I'm back home again and all is well, for the most part. My mom and dad have been sort of laughing at me because, although the scissor lady did a really good job, she did, um, kind of give me this Brazilian cut in the back. Really! There isn't a lot of hair left back there any more, if you know what I mean. But just in one long strip right across my...well, you know. Mom wants to post a picture of it, but I think I've convinced her not to. For now.

But please don't ooh and ahhh over me. From all outward appearances, I may look like a frou-frou, girly-dog, but, in actuality, I'm a mud-loving, dirt-eating, property-protecting, farm girl through and through.
It's raining really hard today and I can't wait to go outside!

I'll leave you with this:
BEFORE:

AFTER:

Woof.
Roxy

Picture of the Day: Some say I still pout like this..

Do you remember what it was like to be ten and be having the worst life ever? I sure do.

Do you remember what it was like to have an adorable little sister who stole all your attention, just by being so damn cute? Yup, welcome to my torment.

Do you remember what it was like having such a spectacularly hot mother that boys in your second-grade class would transfer their pledges of eternal love from you to your mom once they met her? Oh yeah. Been there. It really sucked.

See what a rough life I had?
This picture proves it.