There's new chickens in the house!

Yesterday, we became the proud owners of four new chicks.

Meet Olive:

 She is a black sexlink.  She will look similar to this when she is grown:

Next, meet Butter:

 

 I love her little tail!

She is a buff Orpington.  She will look like this:

These next two are going to be my favorites - They are yet to be named.  I have sought this color pattern for a couple of years, and I was finally able to contact a breeder who was able to get me a couple of them.   They are called Columbian Wyandottes.

 They will look like this:

 It doesn't seem to matter how many batches of chicks we have.  We all are very excited to play with them!

Chicken bags anyone??

Chicken feed bags recycled into handy totes:

 

Our Poultry Calendar Submissions

Remember when my big Buff Orpington chicken made it's way into the Department of Agriculture Poultry Calendar??  Well, the calendar contest is on again this year.  We found out a little late in the game; the deadline was August 31st and we found out on about the 20th.  But the kids and I (mostly the kids) ran around with our cameras for 3 or 4 days trying to capture shots of the chickens.  Chickens are very hard to photograph because they are constantly moving.  Plus, we are just amateurs with point and shoot cameras, nothing high tech, so it's even harder.  

So here's what we came up with:

Mine:

 I love this picture, but the flash was on, so the exposure is sort of strange. 

I love this picture, too.  I think it's funny.  But it is a bit blurry, so I am not sure if it can even be considered.

Boyson's:

 This picture just makes me laugh.  This is one of our new chickens.  Her name is Gabubu (pronounced Guh-boo-boo); she lays green eggs.

And this is his old friend, Buffy;  the one who did him proud at the fair last year.
 

Lil Guhl's:

 This is a great picture that Lil Guhl got of her little bantam hen. 

 And a good close-up of our Rhode Island Red.

Now we just have to wait and see if any of ours are worthy this year!

Rooster or Hen?

This past spring we got four more chicks to add to our flock of four grown hens.  A few weeks ago, we managed to integrate the now grown chicks (now called pullets) into the flock.  This takes a bit of time and extra watching because the hens will pick on the pullets, sometimes to death.

Anyways, my big buff orpington hen didn't seem to accept the pullets as well as the others (remember her:  she's the one who has never laid eggs and is also a calendar girl).  She was being quite mean to them, so we decided to separate her from the flock, at least for the time being. 

Yesterday morning as I was enjoying my cup of coffee on my patio swing before church, "Big Penny" (as I often call her) woke up and came out of the roost.  She stood at the top of the ramp to the roost and - CROWED!!!   She (he?) did it six or seven times.  Now it wasn't a full blown crow, but it was definitely some sort of crow.  My husband heard it too.  We just sat there and laughed.

So this morning we got up and set up the camera.  I'll let you decide if this is a rooster or a hen:

So I have to add that young male chickens will usually start crowing between about 4- 8 months of age.  You will know if you have a rooster well before they are a year old.

We have had Penny for 3 years, and have never heard her do anything like this.  The other peculiar things about her are that she has a very large comb and wattle (the red skin thing on her head and below her beak) for a hen, she is very large and heavy, she has a very deep sounding cluck, and she has never laid eggs.  She has been sort of an anomaly in our flock over the years, but we just figured that something didn't develop right in her for her to be able to lay eggs.

Now we have to figure out what to do with her (him??).  First, we are going to change her name to "Pat."

Geez, these chickens really keep things interesting for us.

My Mother's Day Gift

Several weeks ago, we brought home 4 new chicks to add to our flock.  We knew we would need a bigger coop, so we bought these plans because we really liked the looks of this coop, plus it matches the design of the big new shed my husband built a couple of years ago.  We ended up making quite a few modifications to suit our own needs, but the basic look is the same. Anyways, my husband managed to finish it time for Mother's Day and we had a grand opening.

Here's a little tour: 

This is the roost area where the chickens sleep and lay eggs.  The hole in the floor is where the chickens come in from the ramp.  There is a big door on one side so that we can just pull the wheelbarrow up and rake it all out when its time for a cleaning.  There are two roost bars that should be just right to hold 8 chickens.   As you can see, the roof of the roost has a screen for the summer months (for ventilation).  Above that is the plastic roof that keeps out the rain.  In the winter we can slip a piece of plywood right into the gap between the screen and the roof, and then the chickens will be warmer.  But in the summer, they can sleep under the stars!

 

There are two removable nest boxes. 

This is the view of the henhouse from inside the coop with the large access door closed.  It's even wired with electricity for when we want to have lights on the chickens in the winter months.

The little door on the front is where you get the eggs from the outside of the coop.

The ribbon cutting (okay, we have become a little too chicken obsessed here, plus we have no life, so we really get into these sorts of things).  Please don't look at me (what a horrible shot).

 

The chickens go in to check it out.

So there you have it.  This coop looks so beautiful and tidy in our yard, and now the chickens are completely secure.  We haven't had any problems with rodents or varmints, but we did have one close call with a bird of prey awhile back.  So now we no longer have to worry.  The chicks will get to join the big girls in a couple more months and hopefully that transition will go smoothly.  Chickens don't like change, or new hens in the flock, so that will be a challenge.

Thanks baby!  I know it was a lot of work, but you did a beautiful job (all for my hens).

We have chicks!

A new condo for the girls . . .

We have had a flock of city chickens for 4 years now.  This year, it is time to bring some new blood into our flock (translated:  we need young hens to lay some eggs).  We are scheduled to pick up four new little babies this Friday.

Since our "farm" will soon have 10 chickens, they need a new condo to livin in.  So after much searching the internet, we have decided upon this idea to house our girls.  

 We are planning for  ours to be bigger than the plans, and it will match our shed that my husband built two summers ago.  You can see more pics and purchase and download the plans here.

Here's the girls' current condo:

The little add-on to the front is for our two bantam hens that we got last fall for Lil Guhl.  It was only intended as a temporary living arrangement, as we knew that we were going to be getting chicks this spring and would be building something bigger.  

We took out the dogwood tree.  This was a hard decision to make because the dogwood is pretty and is somewhat of a privacy barrier.  But it is rotten in the middle, and I think having the chickens under it has been hard on it (chicken poo is high in nitrogen and is hard on plants to be directly applied. The idea is to compost it for it to be beneficial).  

Anyways,  here's my husband's progress this weekend as we get ready to build the new coop:

So that is what has been going on around here.  Stay tuned for more pics of the girls' new digs in the coming weeks.

Fun with Chickens (and a dog)

I love to see chickens running. It is soooo funny!

We have an egg!

Today we were pleased to find our first egg from one of our bantam hens!  (It's the little one).  I thought this was a pretty big egg coming from a chicken who is only the size of a pigeon!

 

Proof of the validity of homeschooling

The first egg (the brown one) is from one our 'homeschooled' chickens who gets to be with her sisters all day, and gets to go out in the garden for long hours and find bugs and worms.  She gets to spend her time doing things that truly interest her.

 The second egg (the white one) is from a public-school 'poultry-farm' chicken, who has to be indoors in a small cage with many other chickens all day. She gets to spend her time fighting for food and and space.

Two new pets . . .

So we had our second 4-H poultry club meeting of the year today.  We had decided some time ago to buy a bantam chicken or two for Lil Guhl.  She really is not able to handle the big hens for showmanship at the fair.  So today we came home with these two little biddies - Bantam Old English Game Hens.
Aren't they cute??

Lil Guhl named hers Peach.  The verdict is still out on the name for the other one. 

Welcome to our family!

Another famous chicken . . .

I just got a call from the Oregon Department of Agriculture. They put out a poultry calendar every year. There was a flyer that they had dropped off at our county fair saying they were looking for submissions of pictures. I submitted a few pictures of our chickens for the calendar.

They have selected this picture of Penny to go in their calendar!!!

County Fair 2009 - Post #2

It just so happens that our county fair happened during one of the worst heat waves in Oregon history. When we dropped Buffy-chicken off at the fair last Wednesday evening, the temperature was somewhere around 108 degrees! I think I was more worried about Buffy-chicken having to be on exhibit at the fair during that heat than she was! Anyways, all went well and Buffy is now home safe and sound - and a champion at that!

There were 9 kids in Boy-son's Junior division for showmanship. He did just fine! He didn't place 1st or 2nd, but for being his very first time, and being up against some kids who have done this several times already, we were proud of him just for getting up there and enduring the heat for what seemed like a very long time!! As you can see in the pictures, Buffy has her beak open; chickens do pant in the heat.