My tough little hen.

Here is my tough little hen (blue bantam cochin) with two of her boys.  She is a sweet girl, her name is Kate (named after John and Kate because of her attitude lol)  She is even boss over my LF chickens who free range.  SHE eats/drinks first before all others! I'm almost scared to introduce the four others to their crew. 

My young bantam cochins

These four are getting adorable and they are the ones I have to find a new coop for.  They are kind of naughty though...have to work on handling them more.  The splash like to attack me when I put my hand in there LOL.  They are tiny yet but really filling out :D  Just love them!  Can't wait to get them outside with the other four (three roos and a hen)  I know that sounds like a lot of roos (and usually it IS way to much) but SHE is the boss and doesn't allow them to mate her often at all.  She looks really good and no bare spots and she has lived with them for almost three years now :D  She is tough little girl for sure.  

The Ducks and picture of my "bungalow" coop.

The ducks all of a sudden just grew up over night!  LOL  Just like I remember the 4 Pekin doing.  They are making more of a mess (seems like that happened right at two weeks).  Today the "new bedding" I put in was already looking quite messy (this was from the poo not because of the water) I stirred it up and were good to go again.  I figure I need to stir up the bedding every day now. Ducks poo IS 80 % water so it does wet the bedding pretty well after a few days.  It's time to open their brooder and give them more room which means I have to move the four cochin babies out.  Will have to do some thinking on that one.  I have the bungalow coup, I may move them there but it needs to be cleaned out (it's a coop I made inside my large coop above the nest boxes (no wasted space) and I totally made it myself :D  I needed help putting the doors on again (not very good at doors!)  Here is a picture of it: Of course its the small coop above the nest boxes.

Here is what bedding looked like on cleaning day.

As you can see only the top of the bedding was wet...more then 1/2 of the shavings underneath were dry.  I still removed all and put fresh in...they are two weeks tomorrow so we have two more weeks in the brooder and then they move out to their permanent home. It was VERY hot today and I did not LIKE cleaning this out but it had to be done. Plus had to get a lot of other regular daily chicken chores done.  They are happy now and clean :D  I was trying to just skim the top of the bedding off but it was NOT working well for me lol.  It was so packed down from the ducks it was all coming in big clumps. 

The ducks had their heat lamp off all day today (and will keep it off tonight (only suppose to get down to 65 and it will stay even warmer then that in the garage overnight) it was in the upper 80's and they were panting.  They prefer cooler weather like I do!  We tried having them swim in a little foot soak tub but they were having none of that! They did enjoy eating some grass though.    You can tell that they do not have their oils yet (being hatched in an incubator they won't yet) the water soaked them and did not run off. If they are hatched by mom then they can go in the water on day one. 

My new chick. Got a picture.

This is our new bantam Ameraucana Lavender.  I sure hope it's a girl :D  The hen just let me take her out from under her :D  The other two eggs have not hatched yet.  I have another AM Lav and a Partridge bantam wyandotte egg under her yet.  Hope they hatch soon!  If they don't hatch by tomorrow I will candle them to see what's going on.  This little one is pretty calm. The other hen is due to hatch hers soon (within the week) as well and she  is laying on five eggs.   

Escape artist and a video (not related)

Updated my blog just a little bit, don't worry, the picture will be smaller (just can't change it here at work). 

Yesterday when getting home from work I seen one of the lil crew chicks (an EE) out in the yard with the big birds.  She must have pushed on her door hard enough to squeeze through it (and I shamefully admit to leaving the hook off the latch).  She was sitting on top of the wood pile anxiously waiting for me to "save" her.  Poor thing had all of her tail feathers pulled out by the big girls.  Not sure how long she was out there but sure glad she made it!  She looked very happy to see me. All I thought about was finding the purple spray and applying it to her poor raw rump so the others wouldn't bother her bare area (NOTE:  it was NOT bleeding...if it were I would have kept her out until healed) and didn't even think to take a picture of her sitting so peacefully on the wood pile...what a great picture that would have made! :(  I grabbed her up quickly, treated her, and got her back in by her lil crew who she was VERY happy to see!

Just wanted to share my video of the lil crew just a few days old when they went to their larger brooder.  They loved it! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QKlcdMK7hw

One baby has hatched!

Do you see the empty shell to your left? I didn't want to bother her so waited a few hours and went back, lifted the wing, and there it was... A beautiful bantam lavender ameraucana. :)  will try to get picture tomorrow. Two eggs left to hatch.

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