Check out my new chickens! :D

Ok so if you read the last entry you know that I have six new chickens :D  I have a pair of bantam cochins which are REALLY pretty...here they are.  Kelly, these guys are named Beauty and Beast :D  Love it!  This is the male  These pictures don't even do them justice.  They look even better in real life.  This guys is SO nice and just a sweet  heart.  He was getting a little ruffed up by the female so I put them in seperate cages for now.  We had to travel over an hour each way to get them and he sat on my lap all the way home...his butt was in a plasitc bag tho ;)  Boy did I get some funny looks.  Then I lost my phone in the parking lot there and we had to go all the way back to pick it up!  UGH! 



Here is Beauty...she is just beautiful!  And I think she will get better...she is 5-6 months old now and I KNOW she will be nice to her boyfriend soon :D 





And here are my silkies!  I finally got silkies!  :D 
I have a dark blue and three white/splash




And here is what the other hens think of the silkies: On the top row we have (from left to right)  Olivia, Violet,  Zoe, Bell and Nala and on the bottom row we have Izzy, and Lacey.  If we are in the garage they will always come in there and spend time with us. 


And here is what we seeing in our garage a few days ago!  I forgot to post these.  This bigger snake was carring a small snake.  UGH They left VERY fast out of my garage.  They only eat grass...so no worry for the chickens at least. 

Lots of stuff going on.

Well I have tons of info to share today...Pictures will come later.  I got 6 new babies!  They are just awesome!  I got a nice pair of bantam cochins...black. The girls a little mean to the boy yet but I hope to work on that and get them to be best friends.  Then I got 4 silkies...a dark blue and three white/splash. Cutest things I ever seen. I finally got my silkies!  She said too that she will give me two more for free at the show :D  I'm hoping to end up with at least two-three girls and a boy.   

We traveled to a city near us and met someone from a forum I read and I purchased them from her.   I feel in love with that tiny boy instantly.  He reminds me so much of Steele.  These birds are from nice lines so I'm excited to maybe show the male this next year at the fair :D  The girl is 5-6 months old and very close to egg laying age so I have to get her a nest made quickly here.  Maybe hubby and I can work on that today.  Well, time to get going and get some stuff done around here.   I will be back to post pics later today...or tomorrow maybe. 

Did I tell you???? Last entry :D

Tomorrow is our 21st wedding Anniversary!  We will be married for TWENTY ONE YEARS!  It does NOT seem like that long AT ALL!  We are both very comfortable in our marriage...not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing lol.   For our anniversary we get to travel MANY hours with a sick 3 yr old (he has a bad cold prob from the hospital stay...we all know all those germs around there!)  So that should be fun :D 

Another thing I wanted to share...my plans for the chickens I have in my brooder boxes in the house.   Well,  I have four D'uccle's in one brooder (the nice brooder) and they are about two months off from laying age.  I will sell the eggs on BYC as pet quality d'uccles.   Then I have the two orps, one polish and one phoenix in another brooder.  I want to put the 2 orps and the phoenix out in the hen house but I do not want to put the polish out there for fear the hens will pick her crest.  Don't want that picked out!  SO here is my prob.  Shelby (the polish) will be alone.  I am thinking of putting the chick that is alone in with her but will she pick on the chick?  The chick seems to have a pretty big personality so they may be ok.  All I can do is try.  I was not planning on keeping the chick but I just may now...I think it's a hen.  Kelly is now out by the big hens and liking it...at least for now.  He has to come in this winter. 
We have to have the mini bantam coop done before winter becasue I have plans to pick up some show silkies and show bantam cochins on October 4th who will all go in the bantam coop.  Along with the d'uccles I THINK!  I kind of want to keep them in the house :D  I am so hooked on having them in here.  AND I can watch for their eggs easier and keep them healthy for a very long time *fingers crossed*  SO here is what may happen.....

Hens plus the 2 orps, phoenix out in the big hen house.  Polish and baby in small pen until I can get bantam coop done.  D'uccles stay where they are.  Kelly will go in another small coop for winter in the house.  

Silkies and bantam cochins in bantam coop with Polish.   Either sell the little hen or move her to the big house. 

Whew!  Lots of stuff to figure out here!   OH here is a cute pic of Kelly (Kel-Bell) and Steele (giant cochin) in the background we have my only laying hen for now Angel to the left..she is a welsummer hen  and to the right is my buff brahma Zoe who is 15 weeks now.  Soon the big girls will be laying too.  About a month to go before they lay. 

We had a hawk visit! Another video

I know I said I would only post one video...But I forgot to tell you about the hawk visit we had.   It was a fairly big one too.  The chickens took off under the tree...well all but three of them. lol Kelly was one who stood there and gave warning...the other two were the female cochin and my bossy barred rock.  Not even a flinch from the three of them.  I have a video of it...will post tomorrow.  Here is one of Kelly doing her sideways dance for the girls.  CUTE.  I also got a good video of my Giant Cochins.  They are SOOO cute!  I hatched these two out from eggs Kelly gave me :D 

Video...Kelly with "his" girls.

Kelly loves being out by the girls and he has taken three under his wing sort of speak.  LOL  The three young ones (Paris, Britney, and Nicole) an orp and 2 australorp hens.  They are the youngest of the hens and he's taken a liking to them.  It's so cute.  My battery was dying tonight on the camera so I didn't get him with his girls but I got some cute video.  Kelly is dancing sideways for a few of the hens.  So cute.   He also decided he was going to sleep in the hen house tonight.  I couldn't say no.  He promised to be a good boy and not be mean to the others.  I have three or four video to share but I will share only one tonight...have to get to bed so we can head our early to go get Stefan at school...it's a 7 hour round trip so were going to be tired of driving!  Hope everyone has a great day today :)  I'm happy cuz now I have an extra kennel for any extra birds I may get at the show on October 4th :D  I'm building a coop on my own as well (just a smaller one).  Hopefully it works lol.  I will share pics for sure!

What does a small Serama do with a bunch of big hens?

OH MY was it a funny sight.  I took poor Kelly down by the big girls because he was crying and wanting to get out (remember he's a bacholor now and living in my garage in a cage).  I took him out  yesterday later in the evening while the hens were out free ranging and he just sat on my arm doing his fancy dance for them.  Oh he has sharp claws!  LOL  
Today started out the same way...I held him, he danced and then I thought...I'm going to set him down AWAY from the big hens so they don't come hurt him...he is so much smaller then they are.   Well, I set him down and where does he run but right in the middle of all the hens!  Doing his dance and chirping for them.   He was attached to the three young girls...it was cute.  Then two of the hens tried charging the Serama and BOY did he charge back!  It was so funny.  He was charged by three hens AT ONCE and he told them all off and no one bugged him again.  Man he's got guts...Kelly, your right...they do hold their own.  Even my big giant cochin roo didn't want nothing to do with Kelly.   He would go the other way every time Kelly approached him.  I don't think I have a very brave roo there.  LOL  But I'm SO happy that he's nice.  He still needs to be picked up at bed time.  He can't  jump up there yet.  I did get a couple pics on my cell phone that I will have to add here later.   Cory had my camera in his car so I didn't take video...I wish I could have!  I will try tomorrow.  Well, have to get dinner on the table so will talk later.  OH my big hen started laying yesterday again!  We got an egg yesterday and again today :D  It was cracked tho from falling on the hard nest floor...she scratched it to the bottom and then laid her egg on the hard floor :( of the nest. SO I just fed the egg back to her after I cooked it up.  I'm putting some padding in there so maybe tomorrow if she lays we will get a good egg.   Gotta go!  LATER! 

Had another prob last night besides my baby...

Kelly freaked out on Peter and fought with him.  Peter was trying to get away from Kelly but Kelly persisted.  Peter finally managed to get his poor head under the feed table so Kelly couldn't get at him.  The past day kelly has been getting mean even towards the girls which he NEVER does.  He is  mating them like crazy and the girls are all just frazzled by him.   I removed Kelly and put him in  his own bachelor pad which he really doesn't seem to mind surprisingly.  He did try calling his girls when he found food the first couple times but now he seems to get it.  I gave him a larger stuffed toy who he has been  having a wonderful love affair with ;)  He seems happy that she is ALWAYS willing.  I think I did the right thing.  As soon as we get the bantam coop made Kelly will go back in his home.  Right now he will have his own apt.  The D'uccles seem so relieved that he is gone.  The girls are finally not so jumpy. 

I'm SO upset!

Early morning on Aug 19 a sweet little miracle hatched.



 She was sweet and active and seemed to love her new stuffed friend.  Then last night that miracle was taken away from me :(((  I went down to check on her at 9pm...she was sleeping but would pick her head up when she heard me come check on her. Just acted overly tired...other chicks I had did that too. And it was bed time so I didn't think anything of it.  I went down an hour later and she was laying on her side gone :(  She had died somewhere within that hour!  It's the first chick I had ever lost.  She was 3 days old and didn't show any signs of distress.  She was pooping, eating, drinking.  I am just heartbroken...I had big plans for my little miracle.  Now I have this other new baby who is just crying for her little baby friend. I got her at a park just so MY baby would have a friend.  They were just separated by a wall of fence but they laid next to each other at night and could see each other and feel each others warmth.  I was going to put them together next week when the baby got bigger.  The other baby calmed down over night and is now sleeping with her stuffed baby.  I'm prob going to try to find her a good home since it's going to be way to hard to introduce her to the big girls without a friend.  I'm hoping to find someone who has baby chicks about the same size.  I don't know...I have to think about it :(  I'm just so sad this morning still! 

Pictures and a video of the newbie

Well, I finally got back on here.  Cory was playing WOW the night I was suppose to add them.  He hadn't played in two weeks I think, so I didn't have the heart to ask him if I could use the computer lol.   So finally, here we are.  I even got one of him/her today so you can see the difference.  I don't see much of one yet but maybe when I post them together I would. 

This is the first pics...just a day old.





Here he is a few days later...not that big of a difference yet and he still has that piece of egg shell on his head. lol I try to take it off and he cries.  I'm leaving it on!  Poor baby! 


Ok the lump on his head is normal for polish so for those of you who don't know that....that is normal.  And it kind of looks like the head is split there on top...I thought that too until I looked closer.  It's just a line of egg goo stuck along with the egg shell.  I'm not touching the poor baby...it will grow out with the feathers lol  He cried every time I try to clean him up. 



Ok I have a video but first I want to share a really cute story with you.   I went out to close up the chicken coop and say good night like I always do to my babies outside.  Well, it was way past time when they usually head into the coop and I looked out the window and seen Steele (my cochin rooster) walking around outside yet (I let them out to free range from 3-bedtime) so I went out there and came around the garage door to see he was now inside the run.  I called to him and said "Oh Steele are you waiting for mama to come put you up on the roost?" See...he still can't jump up there and expets our help yet... He just spun around when he heard me and come running that funny cochin run/waddle and runs right to me.  He stops right in front of me and allows me to pick him up without any fuss at all!  He is such a SWEET HEART!  I love him to death!  He is my favorite out of all my chickens :D  I hugged  and kissed him on the way to the coop and he was happy to get up there with the others.  I had to do some moving around too...the big girls always try to peck on the three little ones at bed time (Britney, Paris and Nicole)  so I put Steele right next to the babies (who insist now to be up on the top roost with the big girls) cuz he is SO nice to them and never once pecked at them even when they first got in the coop. So now every one of them will get up there and squeeze together on the top roost and the bottom roost is empty.  The three will hang out with the two cochins a lot when they are loose because they don't get bossed around.    OK here is a little movie of the baby's...the first part is the day after he hatched and the second part is a few days after next to his buddy.  I keep them seperate for now since he is SO small yet compared to the other one.  In a week I think I will be able to add them together. 

AWWWW

I went down this morning to check on the baby and it's just a wonderful site.   Seeing it so perfect looking and toes are straight...legs are straight.  Just has a little left over  yolk sac stuck to his butt.  Poor thing.  Otherswise it couldn't be  more perfect.  He even has a perfect notch on the top of his head where his crest will grow.   Kelly sent me a perfect baby :D  I wonder where she is! ?  She doesn't even know he hatched yet.  She's going to be happy.  Well better get ready here to leave!  I will take pics ASAP...I have to run to my nieces house after dentist.  She has lots of peanut butter for me and we may get stuck playing a while.

Still here ;)

But the good news is we have a hatch! My polish hatched at 1:03 AM I will take pics tomorrow...just want to check to make sure she/he is ok and then I'm off to bed...have dentist at 9am tomorrow!  After I get home I will take pictures and post them.  I'm happy! 

I'm STILL up....waiting!!!!!

I'm still up and it's 12:44 am...Cory is prob mad at me...I told him I was going to bed right away...but I don't care :D  I have a baby about to hatch and I'm watching it ;P It's way faster then I thought it would be.  It's zipped 3/4 of the way around the shell already and she/he is a strong one!  It pipped right around 7pm is what I figured and it's already about to hatch.  Usually it takes 12 or more hours to hatch.  They say 12 hours if it's a strong healthy bird.  Well, mine must be super bird...he's really working fast and hard.   I will update later when it hatches totally. 

Night candle report for today on my Polish egg

Well I came in from putting the chickens to bed and grabbed my trusty Mag Lite to candle my lone egg and guess what I seen!  It PIPPED!  FINALLY!  I'm so excited and tomorrow morning I hope to see a good zip going on or a hatch.  Usually 12 - 24 hours to hatch after pipping.  I'm hoping by noon I will have a baby polish chick walking around :)  Kelly offered to send me even more eggs but if this one makes it I will be thrilled and will have what I wanted!  I hope I will have a boy and a girl out of the two polish I have.  Kelly, what will I get if I breed a silver laced with a WCB?  Have no clue how to tell sex on a polish but I'm going to post pics tonight on BYC to see what they think.  Can you tell I'm excited :-) 

Update on Polish egg

The egg is still moving around and it's head is totally in the air sac now I can see it in there just moving around.  I wish It would pip already!  UGH!  I'm so impatient!  At least I'm relieved knowing the actually hatch date is not until tomorrow.  Now if tomorrow comes and goes without a pip I'm going to be so sad :( I will let you know how tomorrow goes. 

A Video for you :)

I should be posting this in my reg journal but had to share it with my readers here too...it's just so cute.

Ok this is our Boxer Max and he has been playing with sit and spins for as long as I can remember!  LOL  He loves those things.  I'm not so sure what he expects FROM the sit and spin but I know he loves watching it go round and round and he wants it to KEEP going round and round and if it doesn't this is what he does to it : BTW...if you didn't see my last entry...check that out! 

 

Hope! Pictures...lots of um

I'm feeling a little better now...realized after reading back when I set the eggs that MONDAY would be day 21 for my little polish.  I ALMOST helped it out!~  WHEW!  I think I would have killed it had I intervened.  SO now I will relax a little until tomorrow comes and goes.  I will candle again tonight tho to make sure all is well.    

OK, so now I have some pictures and a funny Max video for you...that I will post in the next entry as it's taking forever to upload. 

First, here is the NEW baby we picked up for our only polish egg we have left.  IF it's a girl she will have a happy loving home here with us.  If not then we will find him a good home. I can't keep anymore boys :(  We have not found a name for her/him yet.  Any ideas?  It is a barred rock BUT I wonder if there is some sort of frizzle going on?  The new feathers coming in look all ruffled up and seem to be growing upwards. 






Kelly, here is Phoenix...look boyish to you?  He's 5 weeks old here.









And I threw in some fun Serama ones for ya.  Here is Kelly who is now 12 weeks old :)  He is SO cute and so funny.  And such a good hubby to his girls.  He finds them food ALL the time and lets them eat first.  He is even being a good boy to the D'uccle male now :D  I'm so proud of him. He dances alot too ;) He's tried for action with the girls but they are just not having it!  LOL







Ok...now we have a couple of my Mille Fleur D'uccle group. I just took one of the girls pictures...they pretty much all look the same.  This girl is named Tinker Bell.  The boy is Peter.  The other girls are Wendy and Mary.  See where I'm going with this LOL. 

"Tink" She is just a doll isn't she!  Kelly, when these guys start laying if you want some eggs just let me know.  I owe you! 







Here is my very cute and lovable Polish girl who is now 5 weeks old.  She is now the first one to run to me for my attention out of the  young ones.  Here is Shelby:  Kelly, any clue if it's a boy or girl??  I don't know how to tell with Polish yet! 









And last but not least...here is Max.  Is this meant to be a dog toy!????  Be sure to watch the video I'm going to post here in a bit...as soon as it gets done uploading that is! 

Pulling my hair out!

Still NO pip on that little Polish egg!  I'm so scared that it isn't going to make it.  I want to help it but then today IS the hatch date so I know if I DO help it it may end up killing it.   I have to sit on my hands to keep them out of the bator!  If it doesn't hatch tonight I may candle again to see if it's still alive.  It was moving all over last night and its head was totally in the air sac...looked fine to me.  Maybe I'm overreacting??  I'm just like a worried mother here!  May sound silly to some people because it's a chicken but my other polish is SO nice and sweet and I really want to show this one at the fair next year as well.  OH kelly, I got a really nice compliment from a lady about my cochins I hatched from you.  She said they were some of the best cochins she has ever seen in person :D  She thinks I need to bring them to the show too!  I had planned on it anyhow.  Now I just need to do some studing up on shows.  I have NO clue how to begin showing!  I have a year to get prepared for it.  
Steele my male cochin has decided to start mating with the girl cochin lol  It was funny because she turned around and gave him one peck on the head and he lowered his head in shame and walked away so sad with his head hung low like he was embarrassed lol   Poor guy!   I really need to have my video camera handy for free range time.  Those chickens are so funny!  Everyone needs chickens!  Chicken TV is the BEST!

Ok I'm going to take pictures right now...well after breakfast anyhow, and will post them soon.  I want to get Phoenix's pic up.  I think I already know but would like Kelly's opinion on it.  Going down again to check on the baby...I hope there is a pip!  Anyone have a good name for my little Polish?  Names that will work with boy or girl?  

SO SO excited :D

Ok so...the ONE egg I had left still alive in the bator is STILL alive (the silver laced polish from Kelly)  and in the air sac now about to pip :D  It is due to hatch either tomorrow or the next day!   SO anyway...we all know that we can't leave a baby chick ALL alone right?  Kelly, right?  So hubby has agreed that we should go to the wildlife center and pick up a few chicks.  I called them today to see what they had and guess what they have!!!???  BLUE SILKIE chicks!  It's what I had in my incubator!  I had polish and silkies in there...all the silkies died :(  NOW I can get  more :D  I'm so excited.  I will share pics later.
Kelly, Our G phoenix now has a new name...Nic calls him Phoenix lol  Simple....and the polish has kept the name Shelby.  Shelby is a REAL big sweet heart.  When I put my hand in the brooder she comes running up to me sticking our her chest for me to pick her up or pet her. (Don't really know for SURE if she is a she just call her that) I just love her!  The phoenix is getting better every day now that I got rid of the roos that were getting WAY to big for them.  Now it's just the two little girl orps who are nice...and Shelby and Phoenix.  They have LOTS of room now and love it.  I can't wait to show you my new silkie :D  We will be gone tomorrow but hopefully tomorrow night I will post a pic. 
Kelly, I'm thinking Phoenix is a boy...REALLY super pretty colors coming in.  AND a REALLY super long tail coming in too!  LOL  I will post pics of him tomorrow too.  Still no waddles tho :)  And the comb isn't real huge and NO red yet either.  MAYBE it's a girl...do the girl phoenix get a pretty tall comb? 

Taking eggs out of turner upping the humidity

Well it's time!  The hatch will begin on the 16 or 17th I'm hoping.  I have one that is for sure alive (at least three days ago it was)  I'm candling it again tonight when I take it out of the turner.  I'm so sad that only ONE made it out of the 15 I had.  I guess summer heat does effect the hatch rate.  Next time I will order eggs in the spring and fall.  I will be ordering some bantam cochin eggs after the weather cools down.  They will be out with my polish and d'uccles in the bantam coop. 

Everyone please send good thoughts to my lil ol silver laced polish from Kelly to hatch!  I so want this baby!  No silkies for me tho, they all died :( 

back to chickens :)

Now that everything is SORTA back to normal I can get back to talking about my chickens.   Three of my chickens will be getting new homes on Friday.  Three of the Orps that I hatched out.  Two black ones and the white splash one which is a male.  I can't keep any more males besides the ones I have.  Well, so far I only KNOW of one but I have a little feeling the Phoenix will be a male.  He's getting real pretty coloring.  But that's ok...I can keep him in with the bantams OR try sticking him in with the older hens to see how that goes.  The polish is for sure going in with the bantams.  I KNOW my big mean girls will pull her/his little puff feathers on top of her head out!  I have ONE live silver laced Polish egg still alive from Kelly and that one will also go in the bantam coop IF it survives!  I lost all but one out of that bunch of 15. I guess the weather WAS to warm for eggs shipments :(  I would love to get the bantams soon but first we have to build that coop.  We have been busy and not able to start it yet! 

Here is one lonely pic I wanted to share of our Polish baby...I have to take some pics of the phoenix tomorrow so I can show you what a stud he's turning out to be. 

But for now here is my Polish baby...Just look at that beautiful head of feathers right??  What a sweet bird!

THANKS ALL!

I know most of you who read here also read my private journal so you already know that Nic is ok.  But for those who don't...we are back home now and it turns out there was a glitch in the film or a bone shadow on the CAT scan which is what they thought was the blood spot on the brain.  THANK GOD it was nothing!  We are back at home and relieved!~  Nic is back to normal and running around like crazy...he may have to have physical therapy on his neck as it's still pretty stiff from the toticollis.  I will be back to reading journals and back to normal things as soon as I catch up on house work and laundry.   It may take a few days. I also have LOTS of apts this month!  WAY to much to do lol.   My son Stefan is also going away to school Sept 2nd :(  We will miss him SO much!  He will be gone his whole Sr. year.  He does get to come home weekends.  But he stays in the dorm over there all week long.  He's very excited! 

My little boy is sick

We have been in the hospital for the past three days with our little Nic and we HOPE to be out today but not sure.  He had to have an MRI, they found a blood spot on his brain.  Please pray for him.  I will be back when we get back home.  Updating from the hospital now. 

This was suppost to be last weeks' entry :)

OH MY have I fallen behind on journals!  I just LOVE spending time with the chickens that I don't even want to be on the computer anymore lol  I think I found my passion!  I would have NEVER thought it to be chickens but hey...who knew!  I posted this last week on a forum I visit and meant to copy it here but didn't.  SO here it is! 

Well...I started out with 10 girls who were nine weeks old.  Then I had three other little girls who were about 5 - 6 weeks old that I had added last week.  The girls picked on them a little but by the end of the third day they seemed to be ok.  SO I let the little girls spend the night in the hen house and all was well in the a.m. I was up bright and early at 6am to be sure no one was awake in the hen house and being mean to my babies! lol

  In the meantime I got two free welsummer hens from a friend who were both in quarantine for about 30 days.   All is well with them so I added them in the kennel which is in the hen house.  There was a little pecking through the cage but nothing to bad.  The second day I thought well, I may as well try letting them out because they had the saddest bawk I have ever heard!  I felt so bad for them being so penned up and so big!  SO I stood near by and watched as I opened the door to the outside run thinking there was going to be a huge fight.  The big girls walked right by the others and first thing they did was take a dust bath.  CUTE.  They flapped their big wings SO happy to be FREE finally.  One has a bare back from being over mated so one of my girls saw that and started pecking a little...peck one...nothing...peck two...still nothing...peck three....The big girl had enough and pecked back pretty hard.  NOT one more peck after that between anyone!   I think MY girls KNOW who is the boss of the run now.  NOW they had a taste of their own medicine.  They have not even bugged the little little girls anymore.    SO all is well and I captured some pictures of my new crew.  I still have three or four to add later one and I HOPE it goes this smoothly! 

Here is my giant cochin pair  "Steele and Addison- babycakes" I had given Addison away so I needed Steele to have an Addison since the names went together! LOL  SO I renamed babycakes to Addison, but I still find myself calling her babycakes!  Addison can now jump on the roost but Steele cannot (same age) so every night he comes toddling up to me so I can pick him up and lift him up on the roost   He is just the sweetest roo ever! 



Here is the three littlest ones I added last week  A buff orp and 2 Australorpe's   They are  my best bud trio and when one gets separated it until it's found by the other two...SO CUTE!  When I am sitting in the run with the girls they will stay right next to me because the know I protect them. Britney always has her wings over Nicole and Paris.  HAHA cute names huh!  My hubby asked if I named them that because the don't wear any underware! 



And here are the whole crew...the two welsummers are on either side of the big girls and all my girls are squashed in the middle on the top roost   The middle ones were trying to make the others move over a bit but the end ones were like..OH NO i'm NOT going by those big birds! LOL  I have a wonderful flock here...I just LOVE them!