Fowl Rescue

Why is that things seem to go wrong the most when you’re short on time? I’ve got more company than I expected coming this weekend, the house is a wreck, and I needed to get some groceries. But I haven’t been sleeping well, so after the guys went off to work this morning, I laid down for a quick nap figuring I’d be more energetic after a little rest.

I was dreaming about catching chicks, and that there were all kinds all over the house. Little did I realize when I woke up almost two hours later that was a prophetic dream. Two hours! Oh man! I didn’t have that kind of time to waste today! But okay, I feel better, so time to get moving, and fast.

My one little injured chick was peeping. I figured she was lonely. I kept wishing for something else to hatch out soon so she’d have a buddy. I held her a while and talked to her, then zipped outside to do the morning chores.

The wound is healing, even though it still looks pretty yuck.

The animals were all giving me the hairy eyeball, like, “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” I was mobbed by chickens and guineas looking for some scratch grain, peafowl screeching for their morning chow, and indignant goats butting my legs because they hadn’t got their morning treat of animal crackers yet. Okay, okay! I’m moving as fast as I can.

Then I heard it.

If you’ve ever had guineas with keets, you know this sound. It’s that high-pitched locater cheep that means, “Help me, I’m lost!” One little keet was running around in the back yard screaming at the top of its little lungs. At first I figured it got separated from the group we saw last night, and when the guineas all came in for food, it’d find its mama. No such luck.

Instead, the older guineas were pecking at it, so I figured I’d better go to the rescue. I got out my trusty net, waded through the other critters, and went after it.

Now if you’ve ever chased a guinea keet you’re probably already laughing, because you know those short little legs move like they’re jet-propelled. It’s really too bad no one had a camera, cause I’m sure this would have qualified for a winner on “Funniest Home Videos.”

After much running around in the 90 degree heat, I finally captured the little twerp, took it inside, and put it in the brooder box with the injured chick. Finally! Now back out to finish my chores.

I wasn’t out there for very long until I heard that sound again. Uh-oh, there’s another keet somewhere! I grabbed my trusty net again, and went off to hunt it down. This one was in the weeds along the driveway. Those weeds include poison ivy.

We went around in circles, I slipped on some rocks and skinned my leg up a little, and about that time I was thinking, “I sure hope you appreciate me saving your life little keet, cause if I get poison ivy for the first time in MY life, I ain’t gonna be happy.” After a whole lot of tries, I finally netted the little speedball, put it in a bucket in the feed room and figured I’d finish my chores, then take it inside.

Only once it shut-up, I heard that sound again. HOW MANY OF THESE KEETS ARE RUNNING LOOSE!?! I’m sure about that time I heard God laughing and saying, “You’d think by now you’d be careful what you wish for! Now you’ve got some little cheeps to keep your lonesome chick company.”

The trouble is, this one was down in the bottom pasture. Now keets are nigh impossible to see in grass, let alone tall weeds like’s in that pasture. The only way you can find one is to home in on the cheeps, and then you still have to extremely lucky to locate it.

I went to look at a known nest site there, and discovered a mass of adult guinea feathers. Hmmmm, so that’s probably why these are running loose on their own – someone had mama for a midnight snack. But where is this little cheeper?

Feathers to the left, two nests of eggs to the right.

I waded through a whole lot of weeds, and probably still wouldn’t have found it except for one thing. This one doesn’t blend in. It’s a light gray. I’ve never seen a keet this color. We had some white guineas way back when we first got some, but I don’t remember them hatching out any gray keets. What I do remember is white guineas are the first to go when the predators come looking for food. They stand out, unlike the regular colored ones, so get picked off quickly.

At any rate, I captured that chick, and thankfully didn’t hear any more cheeps, so took them inside. Unfortunately, I just thought I was done chasing keets, cause when I got in the house I heard the sound again, and it wasn’t coming from the brooder box.

Oh no! The first little cheep had jumped out of the box and was running around all over the house. I headed towards the sound and stepped in something squishy. “Oh crap!” Yep, that’s what it was alright. Guess the little fink’s digestive system is working fine.

It ran in the office, where there are far too many places for it to hide. I crawled around on my hands and knees trying to find it. It ran out of there and into another room and under the bed.

Hiding out among some stuff on a shelf in the office.

By this time my legs were really itching and I knew I couldn’t reach the keet, so I figured I’d take a shower and get ready to go to the grocery store and maybe by then it would be out again. About the time I started to step in the shower, I heard cheeping in the hallway.

I headed after the little cheep, and it zipped towards the living room. I was praying, “Please Lord, I don’t care if you laugh, but don’t let anyone come to the door and see me running around the house with no clothes on, trying to catch this little beast. I haven’t got time to explain it the psychiatrist after they take me away in the straight-jacket!”

Lucky for me, when those little keet feet hit the linoleum in front of the door, the keet went sliding and I grabbed it.

That's the little gray one hopping out of the water dish.

Once I got it back in the brooder box, I threw a towel over the box and went looking for a screen to put over it so there’d be no more jailbreaks. I now have 1 chick and 3 keets cheeping away in a hopefully escape proof box.

And I’m NOT going back outside for fear I might hear more cheeps!

Play this movie, and you'll hear a lot of those locator cheeps!

Phantom of the Peeps

Yesterday Young Son and I were doing some staining. (Yes, we are finally moving again on the bathroom remodeling project, though still quite slowly.) We had a door, several crown molding corners and a couple of corbels to stain.

Young Son went out to the workshop to get some sawhorses. When he came back, he asked me if I'd seen the dead chick in front of the feedroom door. Rats! No, and I'd been out there just a couple hours before.

There's a hen sitting on eggs under the workshed, but she hasn't shown up in the yard with any chicks in tow yet. Maybe one of her eggs hatched early? At any rate, I figured I'd check it out when we took the sawhorses back and did the evening chores.

Sure enough, there was a tiny little form on the ground in front of the feed room. Poor little fluffball! I touched it with my toe to scoot it out of the way until I could deal with it... and it peeped! Whoa! Buzzing flies notwithstanding, the little chick was still living. Guess the vulture flies would have to wait for a meal.

On first glance it looked it really bad shape, like something stepped on it, just catching the side of the head and taking the feathers and skin off. I wasn't sure if I shouldn't just put it out of its' misery, but I like to give every critter every chance to make it. I decided to take it inside and see if I could doctor it up a little then put it in an incubator for a while.

Once I cleaned all the dirt off, and used some Visine saline drops to clear the junk out of both eyes, I could see that although it was nasty looking, it wasn't as bad as I feared.

Actually, it sort of reminds me of a 'Phantom of the Opera' mask.

I'm not positive both eyes are undamaged, but they're open and the chick is moving around. The little peep is now residing in a brooder box with a nice heat lamp to keep it warm, and a teddy bear to cuddle up to.

Hopefully the little Phantom gets to grow up and make lots of operatic clucks.

Chicks & Peafowl & Frogs & Bats

It’s been another hot day on the farm, and high time to get the bigger chicks out of their brooder box and into a "big chicken" pen.

They weren’t too sure what to make of such a big wilderness to explore, and didn’t want to come out of the cage at first. The Farmer walked up behind them and shook the cage a little to encourage them to go out.

Once The Farmer moved out of the way, a couple of the peahens decided to come up on the other side of the fence and check out the small fowl. That gave the little ones the needed incentive to move. I'm sure those peahens looked gigantic to them!

Besides, they were thirsty, and I had put out a fresh jug of water for them.

This evening when I went out and checked on them, they were running around in the tall weeds at one end of the pen, playing hide and seek. I stayed a while to watch them flitting about, then walked down into the bottom pasture to enjoy the fireflies fairy twinkles for a while.

From there I wandered on over to the pond and listened to the frog chorus. I got a surprise bonus, and watched a fancy aerial display from several bats.

They were munching up some of the bugs flying above the pond. It was too dark for the camera to focus on them zipping around down close to the pond, so I had to catch them up in the sky. Listen close and you can hear the frog chorus, with a short solo from our peacock.
Summer nights may be hot, but they're still pretty cool.

Bird, M.D.

In this case, the M.D. stands for Major Deity, because I'm sure that's what the parrot looks like to the little chicks below her.

There's this feathered being far above them, much larger than they are!

Or perhaps she could be BIRDzilla!

Whatever she looks like to the little chicks, she is intensely curious about those peeping little fluff balls!

Egg Survey

A quick question here...

If you sell eggs, or even if you just were going to sell eggs, do you feel like they should be cleaned? Or do you feel cleaning is up to the person who buys the eggs?

I'm curious... so tell me EGG-xactly what you think!

Camouflage

How do you like my stealth chick?
I have two brooders now, a new one for the older chicks with a cooler light source and taller sides, and the older one that is in use for the latest hatchlings, with the hotter light and teddy bear.

I didn't want my older chicks to feel too deprived so I put an old fuzzy slipper in their box.

Little did I know I was providing the almost perfect camouflage for my party chick with the medley of colored feathers.

We're high tech here... we have stealth chicks!

A Whole Lot of Peeping Going On

I have 3 incubators full of eggs. Most of the eggs are from the peafowl. I'm using automatic turners in two of the incubators, and they're so big I can only fit one in every other space.

Since my hen population is getting a little elderly, I decided I'd put a few chicken eggs in-between some of the peafowl eggs. I started back on May 16th. This past Wednesday, just 19 days later, the first chick hatched.

When I don't have very many chicks, I give them a washable stuffed animal to cuddle up to and help them stay warm.

Yesterday another one hatched, and sometime during the night yet another.

Looks like the latest has some Silver Crested Polish in there.

Later this afternoon I looked in one incubator and there were TWO more new ones. They both look like Buff Orpingtons, so the count is 4 yellow and 1 party-colored.

I wish the peafowl eggs would hatch so easily. I haven't had any luck the last two years, and haven't heard a peep out of any eggs this year either.

I'm hoping a whole lot more peeping goes on before we're done!

Picking up Pastured Poultry & Delivering a Single Sheep

It’s been a busy weekend, and it’s not even over yet since we’ve still got Memorial Day!

Friday afternoon I went out the back roads through places I’ve never been, and ended up at Mountain Fork Farm to pick up my order of pastured broilers.

Yes, I know we have chickens here on our farm. And yes, I thought about raising some for the freezer. There’s just one catch, but it’s a BIG catch. If I raise them, I have to process them, which is a nice way of saying I have to chop their heads off, scald, pluck and gut each chicken. I’ve done it in my time, but at this stage I don’t have the stamina for such a big project, so I decided to support some other farmer who does.

It was a nice drive, and what I saw of the farm was gorgeous. They had a canopy set up a little ways down their driveway, right before you go through the gate to their property, with chickens in coolers ready for pickup. I wish I’d thought to ask how many acres they have. It has to be pretty good sized, because I couldn’t even see their house from where I was.

The first thing you see is a big greenhouse in a field to the right of the driveway. They also sell a wide variety of vegetables that are grown using sustainable agriculture methods, so no doubt get a lot of use from the greenhouse.

They have a shed not far from the greenhouse with big coolers for the chickens and such.

There was a big field to the left, and the road winds on back through the trees. I could hear chickens way off, and I know from their website they raise turkeys, Berkshire hogs, Dexter cattle and horses. I was disappointed not to see any of that, but maybe I’ll be able to go back again another time.

Saturday I spent catching up on work in the house, with laundry and cleaning and baking a couple of Cherry-Orange coffee cakes, several pizza crusts, bread for us, and “Birdie bread” – made with whole grains and veggies, cut up in cubes, and fed to my picky parrot.

Today we delivered a ewe to a friend’s farm way out back of beyond. You even have to drive through a creek to get to the farm. I reckon they don’t go anywhere during hard rains! They were supposed to be home by mid-morning, having gone to a Fiber Festival earlier this weekend. We got there mid-afternoon, but nobody greeted us but the dogs.

Of course, that’s a pretty big greeting, considering they are HUGE Great Pyrenees, and there were about ten of them prancing around us. They will not, however, win any awards for vicious watchdogs, as they were far more interested in seeing if we would pet them. Of course, we’ve been there before, but even the young pups we’d not seen before were eager for their share of attention.

We wandered around the yard for a while. The dogs were all barking and the one inside was going nuts. I knocked at the door. No answer. What to do???

Fortunately, they have several pens, and there was one unoccupied behind the house, complete with shade tree, so we put the ewe in there, got her a bucket of water, left a note in the screen door, and went back home.

The funny thing is, a couple hours after we got home Kim called me. I figured she was going to comment on the new sheep and tell me where she’d been. Wrong! I said, “Did you find the present we left for you?”

Turns out she hadn’t, and she’d been home the whole time. I’m not sure where she was working, but her mother was in the house and never realized we were out there, or unloading sheep in the pen right by the house. I figured there was no way they could NOT know we were there considering how the dogs were carrying on, including the one in the house. We’d left a note in the screen door and left a sheep, so there’s no denying we were there!

At any rate, the sheep got delivered, and I got to check out a bunch of the ewes and lambs she had running around.

We’ll do the check and registration thing to each other through the mail, so … all’s well that ends well?

We tried a different route home, and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of this lovely red barn we passed. Oh… and Robin… you won’t believe how many wild turkeys we saw on the way to and from their farm! They never stood still long enough for a picture, but I promise, we really did see LOTS of them!

Critters in the Backyard

When I went out to do chores this evening, this is what I saw:
There's a goat to one side, a couple of llamas, a Maremma LGD in-between, and a rooster. But wait! Look closer! What's on that male llama's back?

Well, look at that, one of the Buff Orpington hens is resting her feet in llama wool.

As a matter of fact, the rooster was on Samson's back too when I first went out, but by the time I grabbed my camera, he'd gone off to see if I was putting out any feed.

Maybe sitting on a sheep or llama's back is like having warm, fuzzy slippers on your feet. Since it was a cool, rainy day, that probably felt good.

I just never know what those critters are going to be up to when I go outside!

A Fowl Predicament

When I went out to feed last night, I saw a strange sight in the sheep shed. Ever see a chicken hanging by a toe? No, this was not a chicken trapeze artist. More like a trapped-by-a-toe chicken. The chickens like to roost on the 2x4 at the top of the chain link fencing separating the front and back of the shed. Evidently she caught a toe when she tried to hop down.

A fowl predicament indeed!

I grabbed a pair of work gloves to wear in case she got frantic when I tried to free her. Those claws are great for scratching the ground looking for bugs and seeds, but they also make nasty scratches on bare skin.

She was dragging her leg when I first let her loose. I didn't know if she'd broken it or the leg was just numb from holding her entire weight for so long. I looked for her this morning, but couldn't see any chicken that was limping around, so I'm hoping she is okay now.

Otherwise, we might have to make chicken fence fries.

Lord of the Dance

One, two, one, two, step in time - Don't fowl it up!

Typical Scene on the Farm

It's a blustery day here on the farm. There's moisture in the air, sometimes just a light mist, other times it's wee little balls of stinging sleet. This is not my favorite time to be out and about, but the animals need hay even more on days they don't go out and graze.

The guineas don't seem to mind a little rain, running around looking for grain or perched on the fence.
I almost chickened out of my morning walk through the woods, but I figured if the guineas could hack the foul weather, so could I.

The wind was making quite a racket as it roared through the trees, and of course the creek was up a little from the bit of rain we had.

On nice days, when I let all the animals out together, it's not unusual to see all kinds of combinations of critters, with the chickens, guineas, dogs, sheep and llama.
This isn't the first time I've seen poultry perching on sheep. I think that nice thick wool must keep their feet warm, or maybe they just like being on top of things.

It's a typical scene on the farm.

Corn Crazy

In the mornings when I go out to do chores, the chickens always come running because they love me so much. Okay, maybe it has more to do with the fact I always throw some cracked corn out first thing.

The guineas aren't far behind, and rush in to get their share. It seems every critter on the place loves to munch on cracked corn. Even wonder dog Toby will lick some up now and then.

However, the top of the food chain here is the goats, and when I let them out, they chase everyone else away.

And just what do you think you're doing, trying to eat MY corn????

For that reason, the goats are always the last critters I let out of the night pens, but I always make sure there's some left for them to have a morning treat also!

It seems the only critter outside that never wants their share is the cat, Spot. I guess he figures that corn isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Back to our regularly scheduled program…

The holidays are over, and it’s back to the old routine. The Farmer went back to work today, which means I have to do morning chores again. Naturally, it also happens to be one of the coldest days we’ve had this winter, with a way wicked wind whipping through clothing.

I hate cold weather. (Okay, so I hate really hot weather too. I’m just a temperate kind of gal.)

I put on thermal underwear, flannel pants and gym pants. I put on a shirt, sweater and winter coat. I stayed fairly warm, except the wind still managed to slip through the fabrics and spread its’ vile chilliness.

The goats weren’t thrilled about moving out, and even the sheep with their way wooly coats were tucked in the shed this morning. Usually the cold doesn’t phase them and they sleep out in the field, but I suspect the wind was whipping through their wool and getting to skin, so they were feeling winter’s bite also.

We’ve been missing a hen for a couple of days. I found her this morning in the hen house which I thought The Farmer was looking into every night to see if there were any eggs. You know what they say about assuming things! Our hens are elderly, so I suspect it was just old age.

That meant a long trek out into the woods to dispose of the corpus not so delicti (a body, but no crime… and it wasn’t too delicti-delectable looking either). Toby went with me until we got to the electric fence. It wasn’t on, but he doesn’t take any chances and won’t go near it. We never saw it happen, but at some point in time, he must have gotten zapped but good, because we can’t even carry him across without he totally freaks out.

It seemed to take forever to get all the animals fed, check water, dispose of a chicken corpse, and otherwise finish up the chores this morning. I’m glad we have heated water buckets so I don’t have to chop ice, and I'm glad I don’t have to shovel snow. There were a few flakes floating around, but not enough to really say it was snowing.

And I’m thrilled to be back inside where it’s WARM.
I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a very good pioneer!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here we are, all set to start a new year. And every year, I think I’m going to do better, and get more done, and have BIG plans for what I’m going to accomplish. And every year, most of the things I accomplish don’t seem to match what I’d planned to accomplish. Maybe this year will be different? (I know, take off those rose-colored glasses!)

So what’s on the agenda for 2008?

#1) Get rid of all the wool from past shearings sitting in my basement.

#2) Update our farm website. Our critter population has changed dramatically.

#3) Rejuvenate my flock of laying hens. Time to order some new chicks this spring! My hens are getting elderly – I didn’t even know that chickens lost coloration in their feathers like we do in our hair.

#4) Order some meat breed chicks also, and fill our freezer with some “I know what’s in ‘em” chicken. My biggest hang-up is finding someone to do the processing. I can’t handle all the feather plucking and cleaning out and stuff like I did when younger and healthier.

#4) Find someone who raises beef without hormones, and put some no-dye-or-anything-else-in-it beef in our freezer.

#5) More, higher raised beds in the garden. Even just one that was tall enough I don’t have to bend over to work would be great. It would make growing veggies so much easier for me.

#6) Finish refinishing the house, specifically, the hall bathroom and my office. Those are the major projects, but there’s a bunch of little stuff that needs done, too.

#7) And the most major project, clear out all the extras in the house, from merging 3 households of packrats. It’s time to clear things out, but it takes a lot of time and effort, and is difficult when you have lots to do, and not enough hours during the day you can work!

I know doing all this will be difficult in one year, but it’s good to have goals to shoot for!

Fowl Update

We’ve had several little chicks and keets born the last couple of months. It doesn’t take long to go from newly hatched to pretty well grown. Our little chicks are coming close to adult sized, but it’s difficult to know how big they should get exactly, since they are a mixture of breeds.

The 3 chicks pecking at some cracked corn I threw out.
The hen on the right is a Sicilian Buttercup, fully grown.

The picture on the left is a close-up of one the 3 chicks in the first picture. You can see her funny little "top knot." The chick on the right is Peepers. Her mom abandoned her and we raised her in a cage on the front porch until she was big enough to safely let out with the rest of the chickens.

Here’s the oldest bunch of keets, more than half the size as the parents now.

The middle group has grown a lot, but still has quite a ways to go before they are adult-sized.

And the little ones are still running around, so short the only way you can tell they’re in the grass is to see it moving.

We didn’t have any luck with hatching any peachicks this year, not in the incubators nor under the peahens. Breeding season is over and the peacock has moulted. (Why carry around all those heavy tail feathers when the girls are ignoring you?) Maybe we’ll have better luck next year.

And that’s the latest fowl news from the farm…

Southern Heat

I don’t know about global warming, but I know it’s plenty warm here in the south. I’m not too thrilled when you pass a bank thermometer and it has THREE digits!

Even though it’s in the shade, our thermometer has been reading 98 degrees F. for the last three days. (For those of you using the Celsius scale, that would be almost 37C.) That’s just TOO hot.

Everything here on the farm is trying to cope with the hot weather, from “A” to “Z”. (Okay, so the closest I have to the front of the alphabet is cat, with sheep at the tail end.) All the critters look for shade, but have different habitats and various ways of beating the heat.

Spot, the Cat, likes to lounge around in the shade under our truck, and keep his thirst quenched with Birdie Broth, otherwise known as water out of the bird bath – just a “faint flavor of birdie essence”. I'm not sure if I put fresh water in there for the birds or the cat.


A dust bath is the method of choice for a quick cool down for the Chickens... … while the Dogs like to hang out under the back porch or in the shade of the big walnut trees in the back yard.

Neffie takes a rest (above), while Toby enjoys chewing on a hunk of wood while lazing in the shade (below).

Even our Garden needs help with the heat, especially considering we are also under drought conditions. I’ve had to water the peppers and tomato plants almost every day. (Thank goodness for well water!)

Of course the Goats like to hang out under the shade trees in the back yard with Neffie.

Keira the Llama often joins them, but she also cools down by “burying” herself in a sea of green plants in the bog area of the bottom pasture, though it’s not much of a bog right now!

In the aviary, the Peafowl go for a combination of bathing in the dust or pool.


Last, but not least, the Sheep also opt for spots under the shade trees. Our flock matron has a special spot under a pile of lumber and gets double shade from that and the overhanging tree branches.
One way or another, everyone is looking for shade and the coolest spot possible. I’m thrilled to be able to enjoy the air conditioning inside the house. Yep, I admit it, when it comes to extreme heat, I’m a Wuss.

Beating the heat from "C" to "W" -
Just keep that air conditioning on for the "W" please!

Rascally Raccoon

Last night I was sitting on the couch in the living room, minding my own business (I do that occasionally!), when I heard a loud “THUMP!” on the front porch. Being the curious person that I am, I immediately went to the front door, turned on the light and looked to see what the commotion was all about.

A raccoon was zipping away into the night, after knocking over a bucket of peafowl eggs I had setting on a shelf out there. They fell to the concrete and smashed quite satisfactorily, making a raw omelet of nasty smelling eggs and shells spread over a wide swath in front of the door. These were eggs from the incubators I’d culled because they hadn’t hatched, so some were pretty foul smelling (yeah, I know, all eggs smell FOWL.).

It’s a good thing Peepers is in a sturdy cage, or the raccoon might try having her for a snack too.

No doubt it also helps itself to the cat food when Spot doesn’t eat it all.

This morning I had the task of cleaning up the mess. I scraped the eggs off the porch and sprayed off the rug and concrete. There was already an army of ants helping themselves to what the raccoon left behind.

That’s the country life for you – raccoons raiding the area for whatever chow they can find, and the ants munching up the leftoers.

Fowl Update

It’s dark out, and almost 9pm, but I can hear the guineas outside making a racket about something. They’re not called the “barnyard watchdogs” for nothing! We have two sets of babies (keets) left. The first batch we so carefully penned up was a disaster. None of those survived. The others that hatched out close to the same time was a smaller group, and there are still two keets running around. I have hope they'll survive, as they are already half grown.

Then last week we noticed a new group of 5 babies. They are still pretty small, and already down to 3 keets. One way or another, something seems to get to the little ones, and the survival rate is pretty low. I think we have too many hawks, owls and 4-legged predators.

Of course, it’s better than the peafowl, which have zip babies right now. I still haven’t had any luck with any eggs hatching in the incubators. My only hope now is one peahen who is sitting on an unknown number of eggs. This is the first year any have tried to nest. I hope she does better hatching eggs than the incubator.

The peahens will probably stop laying soon. The peacock is molting, losing feathers at a rapid rate. That usually signals the end of mating season. It looks like another not-so-successful year with the peafowl. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but the last couple of years have been a bust.

The 3 little chicks of assorted flavors are growing rapidly. In fact, I mistook one the other day for one of the little Golden Sebright hens. They wander further away from Mama Hen these days, and don’t always stick together either. I think they may all be hens, which would be a miracle, but they don’t have much of a comb even yet, and a rooster should be showing a pretty good sized comb by now.

Our last little outside fowl, Peepers, just got moved into a bigger cage on the front porch. After she was abandoned by her mother, and I couldn’t get the other hen to adopt her, I put her in a birdcage on the back porch. She’s about outgrown it, so we put her in a bigger cage. I’m not ready to turn her loose yet, since she’s only half grown. I'm not sure how's she going to do on her own.

She doesn’t look like the other three, so we have 4 chicks that are all different. Nothing like fowl diversity!

Peepers on top of her bird cage.

Chicken Littles...

Right now we have some chicks. Only four, but what a varied assortment! We like diversity here. The mother is a Buff Orpington hen, and the father is a mix from a Polish Silver Laced rooster and Sicilian Buttercup hen. Almost sounds more like flowers than chickens, doesn’t it?

Polish Silver Laced + Sicilian Buttercup =

This Rooster + Buff Orpington Hen = Some interesting Little Chicks.
Here's a more recent picture of the fast growing little chicks...
The fourth chick was abandoned in the nest by it's mother. I tried to get the above hen to accept it, but it was a little younger than her chicks, so she figured out it wasn't hers and kept pecking at it. For now it's residing in a bird cage on our back porch.

We also had a bunch of Guinea keets. (Fowl lesson for the day: baby guineas are called “keets”, not chicks.) The guinea hens have been nesting in pairs this year, with double nests containing up to 50 eggs. One pair ended up with about 16 keets out of all those eggs, one set ended up with about 5 keets, and another set abandoned their eggs after a snake kept raiding the nest.

Guineas give new meaning to the phrase "bird brain." They run up and down along a 4-foot high fence, trying to figure out how to get to the other side, when they can fly to the tops of very tall trees with ease. They're also noisy, but they have one important virtue... they eat ticks. We had a real problem with ticks when we first moved here, and now see only one or two a summer.

Guinea hen and keets crossing our driveway.

The only fowl problem is we don't have any peafowl chicks this year. I don't seem to have much luck getting them to hatch out. I have a couple of incubators filled with eggs, but no chicks yet. I keep hoping!

Meanwhile, we'll enjoy watching the fast growing chicks and keets scampering around after their mothers. It's fun to see them hopping around, scratching and trying to do "big chicken" stuff.

Chicken Littles... gotta love 'em!

What Egg-xactly is it?

Some of our chickens like to lay eggs in a feed trough in the sheep shed. When I went out to gather eggs, here is what I saw:

Okay, true confession time. The top egg I placed in there for comparison. It's a peafowl egg. Our peafowl are in a large aviary, so lay their eggs in there. Once in a while we find a chicken egg in the aviary, as our Golden Sebright's can slip through the openings in the wire at the bottom, but generally speaking, the chicken eggs and peafowl eggs aren't together.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what peafowl are - I know some people get confused at the term peafowl! Think peacocks. Only peafowl is the real name for those type of birds, peahens are the girls, peachicks are the young birds, and peacocks are the boys, and the boys only.

Anyway, back to the nest of eggs! In the middle are two chicken eggs. The white one on the left comes from a Sicilian Buttercup hen. The one on the right comes from a Buff Orpington hen.

Now the bottom egg, I'm not sure egg-xactly what it is. With that odd shape, I believe it may have been a Polish Crescent Sliver Moon chicken.

Well, okay, maybe not. I do believe it came from our Polish Crested Silver Laced chicken however. I really don't know what happened that she laid this egg with such a strange shape. They usually look just like the other chicken eggs.

I guess she just wanted this one to be egg-stra special!