Eggs and a Mystery Pullet,



And here is Prince hanging out with the chickens. He will be 2 years old in 2 weeks.

Sir Oliver with his lady friend Miss Daisy, these two seem to have taken to each other, I noticed yesterday that he was following her, and today it was very obvious that he is hanging out mostly with her, tonight they are sitting next to each other on the perch. I am glad she found a friendly soul, I was a bit worried because I got her all by herself and she had to start at the bottom of the pecking order. She is a very smart little pullet, she is also pretty determined and she is already earning herself a spot at the food bowls with the older hens, so she is integrating herself well. she just didn't really have any buddies, but now she has a little companion to hang out with.

Miss Daisy, the mystery pullet that lays a pretty bluish green egg

Sir Oliver and his new ladyfriend Miss Daisy

egg line up, I love all the different colors of the eggs

the same eggs from another angle

in a different light

A bowl full of colorful eggs, note the bluish one of Miss Daisy in the foreground to the left, the small darker brown egg behind it is from a Jersey Giant still laying pullet eggs too.

not the best picture, but it shows the pullet egg from Miss Daisy next to a Jumbo egg from another pullet, I think it's from a Jersey Giant, but not sure, it had two yolks. This egg was over 3 inches long

A few of my hens lay a pretty dark terracotta colored egg, one is from a Delaware, one from a Black Jersey Giant and the other dark one is from a Ameraucana, pictured here is just one of the dark eggs next to a green egg and a pinkish brown egg

New Pullet,



I got this new pullet today, I thought at first she is a Rhode Island Red, but with her bright yellow legs and white earlobes I am thinking she may be a Brown Leghorn, the lady I got her from didn't know what she was, and she said she hadn't been getting any eggs. The pullet looks like she will start laying any day, she is just about that age.

another shot of Daisy the new pullet, I think the previous owner's puppy's name was Daisy, seems like a fitting name for the pullet in memory of her other family. I am sure she feels a bit lonely without her 3 rooster friends she grew up with, she doesn't even know how lucky she is to get away from them just in time before they start harrassing her. The previous owner said they had just started "playing" with her. I had to justify getting another chicken, here it is, I had to save her from the roosters.

another shot of her

Sir Oliver putting all his might into crowing

He is such a pretty little fellow

Pearl

Bianca in the foreground and Pearl in the back, they are my two Delaware hens, they were both sick not long ago and last winter they never grew back their feathers from the rooster damage, so I had to put up heat lamps to keep them from getting too cold, now they both have beautiful new feathers and no problem staying warm

A giant egg, I measured it and it was 3 inches long, it had two perfect seperate yolks inside.

In this picture Bianca is in the back and Pearl in the front, from what I can tell, chickens that are the same breed and were raised together around other chickens still seem to hang out with each other. I am so happy to see these two looking so good again and being active and even laying eggs again.

Pearl, the Miracle Hen,




Pearl, one of my Delawares is truly a miracle hen, yesterday she layed an egg, the first real egg with a normal shell for over a year. She was extremely sick just a few weeks ago and had lost most of her weight, she was just bones and feathers. Last summer the rooster had done a lot of damage to their feathers, and Pearl and Bianca's feathers never grew back well over the winter when everybody else was molting. Sometimes this summer I learned about an antibiotic called Denagard that treats a common infection in layers that leads to symptoms that I saw in some of my hens, so I used that and almost instantly their feathers grew back. But after that I had a few hens getting diarrhea, so I treated everybody for that, when all was well, I used the Denagard again because I had read that it has to be repeated. Some time after that I notice that Pearl had feathers missing on her neck, I had no idea why, and then at some point I noticed her crop was distended and wasn't going down over night. So I treated for impacted crop but saw no improvement. Her appetite remained good, but the crop was just huge. I took her to the vet and he thought it may be thrush and recommended vinegar or copper sulfate. So I tried the vinegar in the water, but had no success. I was encouraged that she continued to eat, despite the huge crop, but I knew at some point she would crash. Then her appetite decreased and I became rather desperate, surgery for the crop was out of reach, plus I wasn't sure if it was really impacted or what else was going on. Then I read some more about thrush and realized that the swollen crop can be a symptom. So I asked my vet for Nystatin. The day I got it I had 2 more hens with symptoms so I started treating all 3, two of the recovered quickly, Pearl's recovery was very slow and I often felt like giving up. She wasn't eating or drinking, so I really had to force fluids and some nutrients into her together with the medicine, she never cooperated, it was a fight each time. I finally noticed the size of her crop decreasing, it took about another week until her crop returned to a normal size, she had lost just about every little bit of fat she had and she has been eating like crazy ever since. I don't remember her ever being as active and lively as she is now, she follows me around, she shows up when I use the garden hose because she knows I might uncover something with bugs under it, she chases everbody else away from anything edible. She is gaining back weight and for her to lay an egg was simply a miracle that I didn't expect, but I caught her in the nestbox with the egg still wet, and it did have one end looking just a bit uneven, which is what her eggs used to be like before she stopped laying. Unfortunately her sister Bianca got sick again a week ago, diarrhea and mushy crop, so she is in the sick ward now (laundry room) and on Nystatin, after a week of force feeding, she has started eating again the last few days and has started foraging with the flock the last 3 days, first very slowly, but today I saw her pecking at another hen who came too close to the food, so she is on the mend, I just have to keep up the Nystatin longer this time.
Next thing on the list is to worm everybody with something that treats multiple internal parasites, not that I have ever seen any evidence of parasites, but I think it is a good practice with free ranging hens to worm them occasionally to make sure that they are not infested and suffering poor health due to parasites.

Roosters growing up,

My Silver Seabright rooster, I have named him Taz, for Tasmanian Devil, he is quite a feisty little guy. His tail feathers are getting longer, he is a very flashy looking guy. The hens aren't very impressed with him as of yet, but I think they will realize he will protect them. He has a nice loud crow. Since I have over 20 hens, I usually see each rooster hanging out with a different group of hens.

Sir Olliver in attack position, yep, he is another attack rooster, but luckily due to his small size this isn't so scary as when I had a big rooster attacking me. This little guy is taking his job very seriously, my husband said the little guy attacked his shoes too when he walked through the chicken yard. He sometimes attacks my shoes, only problem is I almost stepped on him today when he got in my way and I didn't notice it. He watches very closely what I do, he attacks the bucket, the towels, but he starting to relax a bit now, maybe he is realizing he is going a little overboard with his protectiveness, I try to toss him a treat every time I go out and he runs up to me, maybe he will figure out I am not a threat. Roosters are really very interesting, and I am glad I got this little trio of mini roosters, they aren't much of a threat to the hens, and I get all the crowing and entertainment of roosters without having to be afraid of them.

Loves to crow all day long

Sir Olliver sitting on the garbage can, I have noticed that all 3 of these little roosters love to take up high spots to crow

Goldie, I wish the Seabrights would come in a larger size too, they are just so pretty to look at.

Little Goldie coming of age too, he is starting to flirt with the hens, but so far they aren't impressed

Sir Olliver is happy to watch over the hens, the two young Buff Orpingtons are his favorites.

Look how pretty these black girls are

My 4 Black Jersey Giant pullets

I rarely see any of these 4 by themselves, they like to hang out as a group, or at least two of them together

size comparison, one of my Black Jersey Giant pullets with the other hens who are over one year old. One can see the black one doesn't even have a comb and wattles yet, they are about 5 months old now and one of them has started laying eggs now

Pullet Egg

one of my two 4 months old Buff Orpingtons laid her first egg today, how cool is that?

It's a little sooner than I expected, but I won't complain. Interestingly enough my very first batch of chickens the first egg I got was also from a Buff Orpington, my little Mira who I lost this last winter, and I still miss her, she was such a little Miss Personality. Another thing that is interesting is that in my first batch I had two Buff Orpingtons, one of them, Mira, was about half the size as the other one. The two new ones I got this spring have a similar pattern, one is a lot smaller than the other one.

New baby peeps,

I really hadn't planned on getting any baby chicks this year, but I recently lost another hen after, in the beginning of the winter I lost my little Mira, so I was down to hens. I couldn't find somebody who was raising any chicks to sell to me later, so I decided to get a few now before it gets warm in the hope that they will be big enough when it warms up a bit and by the time summer comes they should be able to mingle with the adults.
I have 2 Buff Orpington chicks and 4 Barred Rock chicks, both are brown egg layer breeds,


A new little group of peeps,

wing feathers on a Buff Orpington

wing feathers are already growing

just a cute little fluffball

wing feathers on a Barred Rock chick

she has a cute expression

She wasn't too concerned about sitting in my hand

one of the little Barred Rock chicks

A little Buff Orpington chick

she seems to know that she is cute

a little sleeping beauty

The photos below are when the chicks were a week old, it's amazing how fast they grow

Here are the two Buff Orpington chicks

resting in the corner

they already have lots of feathers on their wings, the feet are turning darker

wing feathers and the tails are growing too, they are starting to practice their flying skills, at this age they often crash into each other

two of the Barred Rock chicks, it's funny how they have this little dark band over the beak

I threw in some weeds this morning thinking they would just mess around with it, but I happened to see this one eat a small leave of it

there goes the rest of the leave down

I think she looks pretty pleased with herself

they are too cute at this age

they are all checking something out