Lovely Ladies & Gents
This summer I had two broody hens hatch out 15 chicks. They’re all grown up now, one of the new roosters replaces our Mr Rooster who died suddenly. We were sad to see him go as he was a really great rooster. Luckily he passed on his Silver Laced Wyandotte genes to some of his offspring. They are quite lovely ladies to be sure.
I love these black and white ladies with vibrant red combs, they’re quite lovely indeed. Hopefully they have the same temperament as Mr Rooster who was a laid back bird.
It was certainly a great experience watching broody hens hatch eggs and raise them with the rests of the flock. There are five roosters that will end up the freezer and the pullets will remain as our egg layers. They will replace any older birds that die or any that are lost to predation. I’m not sure if I have a favorite color/breed of chicken, though the black and white ones are really pretty. I keep thinking I’ll narrow down my flock to only Silver Laced Wyandottes so I can sell chicks, but that’s not going to happen any time soon.
Do you have a favorite color/breed of chicken?
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The Milk Monster
The Littles is fitting right in, she’s a feisty little cat. She spends her days outside hunting moles and mice. She climbs trees and scampers about as I work. She had developed quite a love affair with raw milk. Whenever we get the milk out of the fridge she comes from anywhere and begs for a splash.
We’ve taken to call her the milk monster. She can hear a half gallon mason jar from miles away. It’s really funny and quite endearing.
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Paring Down
It’s that time of the year to whittle down the number of birds in my flock. While I’d love to keep them all, they are expensive to maintain over the winter when there is no pasture and I don’t like keeping too many birds cooped up in the winter. I’d rather overwinter a smaller flock so they have ample space.
The guineas all get to stay, they provide the valuable service of tick control. Some of the muscovies will get to stay, I’m hoping to cut down to 2-5 birds. That means I have about 15-18 birds to get rid of. I’m also getting rid of all but one of my Ancona drakes.
With the 15 chickens that hatched out this summer I also need to cull a few roosters, there are probably 3 of those that need to head off to Iceland, otherwise the snowy days in the coop will be lively ones! The hens will stick around to augment our laying flock and make up for some of the predator losses from hawks we’ve sustained this fall.
This is the difficult part of keeping animals. While it would be nice to keep them all, the nature of keeping birds as livestock means that there are far fewer losses to predators and thus more survive. Their numbers will steadily grow until you have way too many birds. The good thing is that I don’t usually have too much trouble getting rid of them. In the spring I sold off most of my extra stock to make way for the new hatches this summer. I definitely am looking forward to paring down on the number of birds I maintain throughout the winter. Feeding fermented feed will be easier and cheaper if I can keep the number of birds below 40!
Do you have to pare down on any livestock for the winter?
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Sweet Littles
Our guinea hen has been doing a great job rearing her littles. We haven’t had much luck letting them raise their own in the past, this year maybe she’s just more mature. I let her sit on 5 eggs and she hatched out three. Watching her teach her littles how be guineas is such a beautiful thing.
Just last week they were finally big enough to not need brooding any more, these photos were from the week before. I love seeing the babies snuggle under mom to warm up on a chilly fall day. After they’re warm, they pop out and away they go, searching for delicious things to eat.
Keeping fowl has many benefits besides eggs and insect control, it’s amazing learning experience. We often don’t get to see wild birds raise their young, I find that watching this process is one of my favorite things about keeping birds.
Have you ever been lucky enough to watch a bird raise a clutch from egg to fledge?
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Going for Gold
Broody hen is at it again, she went broody a few weeks ago. I had already removed the wooden eggs from the nests, these help keep the chickens laying in the nesting boxes as opposed to making their own nests out about about. That also means that they want to lay eggs in the nest that has eggs in it, aka the one broody hen is sitting on. So the wooden eggs returned and fertile eggs from the neighbor were given to Miss Broody. Hopefully this will keep the other hens from crowding her out of her nest.
I marked all the eggs I want to hatch and will check daily to remove any extras that appear, that doesn’t usually happen with the wooden eggs in the other boxes. I tried to separate her into the portable coop so she could hatch her eggs in peace, but she was having none of that. She must be an extrovert.
Hopefully Miss Broody will successfully hatch out another clutch of littles, we’re hoping to completely replace our flock next spring with the hens she’s hatched this summer. If this batch hatched one will go to the neighbor to replace a hen he lost recently and to repay him for giving us fertile eggs. Keep your fingers crossed for Broody Hen.
