Here Comes The Sun

Since bringing home those adorable baby chicks back in April I can say (without question) that I have learned something new everyday.  And, with the exception of Lois, our youngest chicken, the ladies are all now large, lovely egg producing hens.

For the last two months we have been averaging four eggs a day and, any day, now Lois will bring that number up to five.  It has been a thrill each day collecting our bounty.

Now I have learned yet another new chicken fact.  Chickens take issue with winter, specifically the lack of daylight.  The ladies are finicky about their sunshine quantity and hold back the eggs as mother nature holds back on her daylight hours.  Just when we were getting a steady production, mother nature shuts us down.

As far as I'm concerned, the ladies and I have come too far to let this little snafu get in our way and after a bit of "Googling" and a bit of foraging in the storage shed. we had our solution.  A "Faux" sunrise  was installed the the coop late last week, an outdoor light set on a timer.   "Voila"!  A new sunrise to hopefully keep the ladies in check.

Will they get it?  Will it work?  Or have I just installed a crazy chicken interrogation lamp?

Day one:  There were five seriously confused and tired looking chickens.  Having them in bathrobes and curlers would only have made the image more perfect.  Better yet, it was as if I had awakened the teenager on his first day of school.  I swear they were squinting and bumping into each other and asking who set the alarm sooooo darn early?    And when does the interrogation begin?

That night the lamp gets moved to simulate something closer to sun-rise and less "Old detective movie".


Day two:  The ladies appear less confused and go about their regular morning routine.  The food and water is now lit up and its breakfast as usual.  Only two eggs today...

The ladies before the dawn

Day three:  It worked!  Back to 4 eggs a day.  And the ladies seem to be happy to be back to work.

On a side note: if there is no rooster present, one of the hens will take on the "rooster" roll call and attempt to Cock-a-doodle-doo at sunrise.  Fran, our "faux rooster", thankfully has not adopted the new sunrise as her call to arms and still does her crowing at the actual sun rise.

Fran, our Buff Orpinton 

And Then There Were Five

Last week we lost our beautiful Bard Rock.

While the only details I am willing to give are that the untimely event was thankfully, fast and hopefully, painless to lovely Betty, I am still trying to come to terms with and make sense of her sudden death.

For the "farmers" out there and the non-chicken people, the sight of me in my backyard in total distraught over a dead chicken probably seems ridiculous.  But, there I was, standing in my backyard holding my lifeless Bard Rock and crying like a baby.  Her death seemed senseless.  Her death seemed mysterious.  Her death seemed useless.  And I was speechless.

Last week we lost our beautiful Bard Rock chicken.  While the death still seems mysterious, senseless and unwanted, I am have come to terms with its usefulness.

It feels quite odd for me to describe a death as useful but in a way the loss of the Bard Rock has helped the flock.  While I thought of her as the one holding the flock together, her willingness to share time separately between the thee Buffs and the two Dominiques was keeping them apart.  In the week plus since her passing our two young Dominiques have really come into their own.  Both once shy and only willing to hang with the Bard are now out and about with the other hens.  Both has lost their irrational fear.  Both have grown up a lot in a very short time.

We miss Bard Rock Betty but the loss has allowed for growth and removed a sub-set of hens.  The flock is a complete and single set.

The Drought

Today a valuable and scary lesson learned:  Chickens need water.
Of course I already knew this, this wildly important tid bit essential to all life forms. I did not, however, expect my  chickens to give me a clue to their survival.

The chicken's food and water supply is checked daily...until this morning. Last night the supply was fine. Water. Check. Food. Check. This morning an unusually early appointment had me out the door and on the road. A rushed coop/run check from my kitchen window and I was gone.  Admittedly and ashamedly I only did a head count.

Tonight the ladies were their usual "happy to free range" selves as I set them free from their run, though I found something odd. Two of my ladies had seriously discolored Combs.  An unusual sight but something to Google later.

Time for the supply check.  Food, check.  Water...the water container is empty. Bone dry empty!  As I walk with the container over to the faucet I have a convoy of feathered friends in tow.  Barely do I get the faucet going and the water container filled and all the ladies are having a good LONG drink. 

Not long after their bellying up to the water cooler the Comb coloring has returned to normal. There is a sign I never want to see again. There will always be time made fore the ladies.

On a roll! The ladies have started cranking out those eggs

As of yesterday we had reached the 11th egg mark.  We came so close to hitting our first dozen in just one week!

It is official, all three Buff Orpingtons are laying.

The photo above is Marie, our first layer and below are the first of Marie's eggs.

The Egg!

After 23 weeks of patience, care and lots of laughs and antics, our Buff Orpington, Marie, has produced her first and our first EGG!  We could not be any more proud.

Over the weekend Miss Marie was exuding some strange behaviors.  We have come to expect the unexpected as "New Ranchers" while raising chickens but Marie's actions were disconcerting.

All weekend she was noisier than usual.  Angrier than usual.  All weekend was her "Winter of Discontent". Poor chicken.  Something was happening to Miss Marie and she didn't seem to understand, nor did we. Several times we found her wandering aimlessly in the tool shed, pecking and squawking.  She was looking for something she couldn't seem to put her beak on.

This morning, like most mornings I was behind schedule.  While I wanted to take a moment to say Good Morning to the Ladies, my short visit to the coop would only upset the girls.  They would want to free range and I wouldn't be able to give them the time.  They were all in the run, nestled in and content and something seemed strange.  Marie wasn't pacing or clucking.  She, too, was content.

Hours later when I arrived home from work, the ladies were set free to range about the yard.  As they peck about for bugs in the yard I peek in the nesting boxes where I had, weeks earlier, stashed two plastic "Easter Eggs" as encouragement and reference.  There they were.  One brown plastic egg.  One white plastic egg. AND...One brown egg.  ONE BROWN EGG!!!!

WE HAVE AN EGG!!!!

The Pecking Order Or When Doves Cry

Since childhood I think I have understood the very basics of the Pecking Order.  It seems pretty self-explanatory.  Pecking is involved which, in turn, creates some time of order.  At least this is what I believe my 7 yr old self would have agreed to.  Now in my 40's, I'm still pretty sure that holds true.

As baby chicks there doesn't seems to be any pecking order.  As baby chicks they barely knew how to peck, let alone take that skill out on a sibling for a more advanced status in the flock.  In the first few weeks it seemed everyone was on the same level playing field.

Time marched on for the chicks and in the process a new sense of self for each of my feathered babies.  While there still was no "pecking" order among the Buff's, there did seem to be a hierarchy of sorts.  Felicia was the brave chicken willing to explore.  Fran and Marie would follow never straying from the flock.

At three weeks of age we upset the delicate chick balance and bring in two day old Dominiques, Lois and Deolores.  At week four, in comes two day old Bard Rock Betty.  This is where we see the beginning of a Pecking Order or just plain sibling rivalry.  Either way, the Buffs were quite content tormenting their younger peeps, forcing the "newbies" to take up residence in their own customized incubator.  (And yes, each group was housed in my home office for six weeks while their coop was being constructed)

Once all six ladies made their move into the outside world there was a bit of scuffling and posing for their place in the flock.  There was chasing and posturing.  Squawking and flapping.  It was all pretty short lived.  We breathed a sigh of relief and wrongly assumed it was over. 

Here we are at weeks 21, 18 & 17.

The apple cart has turned over yet again and we are establishing yet a New Order.    Big no longer means best.  Our quiet little buff, Marie has taken charge.

Marie has established her voice.  Literally.  She clucks.  She clucks and she means it and if you are in the flock you darn well better listen.  She clucks.  She flaps her wings.  She half runs, half flies to let everyone know who is boss.  Everyone, including the neighborhood doves who occasionally stop by at the feeder.  Heaven forbid they land in the grass or they get a piece of Marie's mind and the flailing, flapping spectacle we have come to love.

Marie, top dog

So Marie is on top for now.  Felicia and Fran fall next in the pecking line.  Surprisingly, the youngest, Betty is in that center mix.  She doesn't challenge but she is not afraid to muscle in during treat time and get her share of the goods.  At the bottom of the chicken pile are the sweet little Lois and Dolores.  Neither girl is willing to get in anyone's way or fight for a treat.  They wait their turn in the back, hoping for an opening.  I always make sure they get in.  No chicken left behind.

On a side note, last night, after the treats had been doled out and the ladies went about their pecking and bug excavating, Dolores came over to me.  bottom of the pecking order, Dolores.  She let me pick her up and she sat on my lap.  She just sat.  There is something about the underdog.  The underchicken.  My heart melted.

Meet The Ladies

It seems I have been remiss in properly introducing the ladies of our lives.  For that I apologize.

The Buffs are now at week 21 and we are hoping for eggs in the very near future but we shall see.  Though I try for the "no pressure" approach, I am trying to encourage through opening up the nesting boxes and "hinting" with a few faux plastic eggs.

The 21 week old Buff Orpintons.
Fran, Marie and Felicia

Bard Rock Betty (18 weeks) enjoying some yogurt while Lois and Marie wait for a peck.

Delores fanning her tail feathers. 

Marie LOVES her yogurt snack

Delores and Lois interrupted from bug hunting.  They are now 19 weeks.

Betty enjoying the garden

Marie has really grown into that lovely comb

Everyday these ladies surprise and delight me.