Soft and fluffy!!!

Just because it's a habit we developed, I do the morning feeding and watering of the animals and garden. Husband will close and lock up in the evening.  This seems to work well, and I don't have to lay in bed, panicked that I forgot to lock something, or the chicken house is open... Sigh. 

Husband had gone out on his evening rounds, and wanted to see the two chicks with Edgar.  Didn't see them in the open cage area I had set up.  Then he looked at the roost...

The babies are obviously big enough to follow Mom!  The other one must have been a bit chilly, it was under a wing, says Husband.

Will have to get some pictures of the Tanker Trio, they are growing a little faster, but are going to have a little catch up on the real world later, I just turned off their heat lamp today, (it's supposed to be 102*), and they screeched and ran around for quite a while!  Then they finally realized...

Nothing happened.

Chick letdown? 

A little bigger.

This is a picture I took of the Tanker Trio, yesterday.  They do NOT like the camera flash, and were not entirely sure about the camera itself! (Photo at bottom.)

The little black chick is completely healed, and will have a pronounced scar, but seems like it doesn't cause any problems.  I think when it gets feathers, rather than the "chick fuzz", it most likely won't even show, or at least not be glaring.

The other two are a yellow and white, like Edgar's babies.  So. I thought great, 5, that will be a nice replacement for the ones I've lost this season, (mostly due to old age), and that would be that.

And the Universe cracked up...

I couldn't find Salt. Oh, crud.  Did she get eaten? Run off? Why couldn't I find her?

I had just finished mowing, when Husband called my attention to a little spot behind the henhouse.  There sat Salt, just quietly glaring at us. 

Oh. She's setting. Okay, a few more is fine, I suppose.

I had a chance to count eggs when she went for a quick bite.

Am I rotten to really hope all 18 eggs do NOT hatch?  Yoiks...

Blog constipated, and chicks.

Tried to write a blog post, and I couldn't get Blogger to let me have the page to write on.  So, I will send it as an email and see how that works.  (It didn't, switched to "legacy", we shall see how THAT goes...)

At this point I have 5 chicks.  Edgar has two, and we have three we are calling the Tanker Trio, because she left the nest and wouldn't accept them.  Tanker because we are using our horse trough to keep them, until they can go out with the rest.

One of the chicks had damage to its neck. I wasn't sure it would make it, but I put ointment on it for a few days, and we kept an eye on all of them.  They were all pretty worn out and in rough shape, but seem to have come out of it fairly well. 

This is a picture of the quick care center we made up for them, a cake pan with cedar in it, in a fish tank.  Heat light overhead.  It was... Unique, but it worked.  Hopefully, I will have pictures with them a bit bigger soon.

A new chicken roller...

I feed my chickens (when it's wet, mostly), in a long feeder.  It's a long metal 'trough' that is supposed to have a bar at the top, so the chickens won't stand IN the feeder to eat. 

I don't know when it happened, but my feeder was in pretty rough shape, and when I have been feeding them inside of late, (NOT like any rain in the south, but we have been getting some rain here, oddly...), two or three chickens will insist on standing in the center, which blocks the other chickens from eating... And, sometimes the solid fuel exhaust gets put in the feed.  EEEEEEEEEEEW!!!

So, I finally remembered to get a heavy dowel on my last trip into town, and had a little confab with Husband about putting it on the feeder.  He looked at the poor thing, and said, is the foot SUPPOSED to look like this?  Um, no, I think it may have been run over?  (To this day, I have NO clue what happened, but the bar was bent nearly in half, and the foot was crushed, even the trough itself was squashed, but I managed to get that back to useability.)  He hmmed for a moment, and said, let me see what I can do.

He came back in with the feeder, and the first thing I notice, the center roller was white, not wood.  He explained, he put a bit of PVC pipe he had over it, to protect the wood, and he waxed the PVC, so that the chickens couldn't stand on it.  (The dowel rolls quite smoothly...)  Then he showed me where the smashed foot was, and it was as if it was new!  He'd taken both out, and bent the one to match the other. 

And so now, I have a chicken feeder that looks very much like a nice tool box, with feet.  I gave it a 'test feed' the other day, and nearly hurt myself laughing!  Edgar, one of my most obnoxious bold hens, jumped right up on the roller.  Then Marshmallow did, too.  And they realized that they couldn't keep their footing.  They both tried running, to keep up with the roll of the center, and then WHOOSH, both go zooming off, landing in a heap by the feeder. 

Do they give up?

Of course not. 

It took Marshmallow about 3 tries to get the clue she couldn't stand on it, and Edgar, the better part of 3 DAYS... But, they aren't jumping up on it anymore. 

Now Jet Puff, on the other hand, got the bright idea to stand straddle of the roller, with one foot on either side.  Oh, great, thought I...  But he learned that he isn't well appreciated for  that, as his toes were pecked, and his tail feathers pulled.  Whereupon, he jumped on the roller...

No one seems inclined to have breakfast on the run anymore!