Chicken Anniversaries and remembering those we have lost,



Meet Chica, she is like the reincarnation of Mira which I lost over a year ago. Chica is very small, compared to the other Buff Orpingtons and it seem like somebody took a piece of her comb out. When she was a baby I noticed she had trouble eating the cooked spaghetti pieces or anything else I held out for her, somehow she has trouble coordinating how her beak works. Everything looks normal and I don't believe eyesight is the problem, she just is not very coordinated when it comes to eating. Her stunted growth is not due to lack of food intake, I do check and her crop gets full just like the other chickens. Just one of those things. She is very smart and she follows me around always begging for handouts.

My Ameraucanas are 2 years old now and they went through their first molt this winter. In the foreground is one of them who is just finishing her molt, I think all the others are done, maybe one more, but I am not sure. The ones with beards are really having big beards and ear muffs now.

Daisy the mystery pullet. She has grown a bit, but her eggs are still small, but a very pretty color and the egg shell is very shiny and smooth. I recently visited somebody who has game chickens and he had one that looks just like Daisy, so my guess is that she is a mix between a game chicken and an Ameraucana. She is very agile and fast, very smart too. I have watched her faking that she found a pile of food and when the other chickens leave the food in the bowl to check out what Daisy has, she runs over to the bowl to get her share. She is very flighty, but otherwise she is exactly what I like in a chicken.

Another one of my Ameraucanas, she has such a pretty golden color

Tippi the Barred Leghorn and one of the Ameraucanas

Here is one of my one year old Barred Rocks, what noisy birds they are, I won't be getting any more of those.

Look at this pretty hen, another Ameraucana, 2 years old with full beard and muffs, I would like to get some white or greyish ones of this breed

this Ameraucana has a clean face, no muffs or beard, she came with the same batch

another one of the Ameraucanas

Daisy on the right with one of the Ameraucanas, Daisy is almost a year old

This is Chica running towards me, she always wants to be first in the hope I have some treats for her

Chica, or Miss nosey bird

And here comes one of the flagship Black Jersey Giants

I have 4 of them and they are my youngest birds, born in April last year. they are very pretty, but they are huge. One is bigger than the others, my guess is she weighs 10 lbs or more, the others are probably 8 lbs or so, they are difficult for me to pick up due to their large size. They are very calm birds, but are easily spooked and then the completely loose it.

That's another Black Jersey Giant. Their black feathers have a green shimmer to it.

This is Sir Oliver, he is the only rooster left and he has also lost a few feathers to the dogs as he recently had to run ins, one time he was attacking me and got out the gate with me when I didn't notice it, another time I didn't see what happened but saved him from Cici who was trying to play with him. Now he is scared of the dogs, but he continues to attack me, I wish he would be scared of me and leave me alone. Unfortunately both Taz and Goldie escaped the safety of their chicken yard, Nanuk caught and killed Goldie, Taz I found buried under a tree with Enya guarding the body. No more banty roosters for us, that did not work out well. There are also still a few hens who don't like Oliver and fight with him. But he is undeterred, or shall I say single-minded, he flirts with the hens and attacks me.

Tippi, and the other following pictures are my 3 year old hens from my first batch of chickens. She is doing well but she only lays shell-less eggs

Buffy hasn't been laying any eggs since she injured her left leg about a year ago. She gets around okay, but in the mornings I have to lift her down from the perch, she waits for me to get her, which I believe is pretty smart. It's not like she likes to be picked up, but she seems to understand that it hurts less and is safer if she lets me give her a lift.

Bella is also very flighty and pretty agile, she occasionally lays a cream colored egg, about twice a week on average, she is also three years old from my original batch

And this is Pearl, unfortunately we lost her sister to the same illness that Pearl had, they were both sick at the same time, but Pearl made a recovery and started laying eggs again and Bianca kept getting sick over and ultimately died. So I am looking to add some more white chickens at some point as I only have one left.

Happy 3 year birthday to Pearl, Bella, Buffy and Tippi - I hope there will be more birthdays to celebrate for us.

From what I can tell, the main problem that has afflicted my chickens may have been extermal and internal parasites like mites and worms that keep the chickens anemic and weaken their systems, which then leaves them open to other diseases. I am on a mission now to make their environment safer by eliminating those pests and making changes to their sleeping areas so they can live healthier and longer lives. We don't have any fleas and ticks here and I never thought that birds could have so many problems with parasites as they do when exposed to the wild bird populations. So identifiying the problem was the first step in making things better. Daisy really helped with that as she came here last, she had good color and started laying eggs within weeks of getting here. I watched her very closely for any signs of illness and despite my applications of poultry dust in their sleeping areas, I noticed that she started scratching and turned paler, so I have taken action on this and everybody is starting to look better including Daisy. I wish I had known this from the start, maybe some of the ones I lost would still be alive.

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.