And Three Became Six

I have always heard people describe how tattoos are addictive. How once you get one, one will never be enough. You'll think you are fine with what you have, and then all of the sudden you'll find yourself in a chair at a tattoo parlor/studio/shop. I for one have never experienced this, but I have chickens, and I now understand those who can't help but get another tattoo.

We were perfectly content with our three girls, and then the Winter happened, and for those who don't know, egg production slows with less daylight hours. We weren't really in the mood to play God with our chickens and provide them with artificial daylight, so we decided to get another chicken. We found a beautiful Blue Ameraucana through craigslist that I wanted to buy very much, but I read that introducing one new chicken to a flock is not likely to go very well.

So of course, we needed one more... and then we thought, well we should probably get two others. So we found someone else on craigslist who sells laying hens. They are actually the same couple we bought our first three chickens from. We picked out an Easter Egger, and a Black Australorp. They are four-month-old pullets (young hens who do not yet lay), and let me tell you, they did not want to be caught. The seller of the chickens was running around the backyard with a large fishing net trying to catch them. Definitely could have been a scene in a movie.

We introduced all three newbies at dusk when our girls were already in bed. It was pretty uneventful, but as I was washing the poo off of my hands in the sink, our Plymy was bawking at me through the window and definitely letting me know how she felt about these intruders.

There is quite a bit of noise this morning as everyone is trying to reconfigure the pecking order. Our Ameraucana is especially noisy because I think she wants to make sure she won't be at the bottom of the pecking order again.

And our minor scare this morning... I went to the chicken run, and the little ones were no where to be found. One of our cats hopped over the fence from our front yard making quite a bit of noise, and sure enough both little pullets were on our neighbors driveway out front. They made quite a fuss about getting caught. We had already clipped one wing on each of them, but we went ahead and clipped the other, and clipped the originally clipped feathers a bit shorter. Hopefully it won't take long for them to realize this is home.

So introducing...

Our Easter Egger Pullet

Our Black Australorp Pullet

Our Blue Ameraucana

And the best thing about the Blue Ameraucana (besides the fact that she is beautiful and comes from show lines)...

We finally get blue eggs!!!

Just to give some perspective, this is an egg from our other Ameraucana who was supposed to lay blue eggs. Hers turned out to be light pink, so we are so happy to finally have blue eggs.

Our Chickens' Savior... Yogurt

So a few weeks ago, the hubby and I realized our Ameracauna was being plucked alive by our other chickens. We knew she was always missing a lot of feathers on her back, but this particular morning, she had an area that was bleeding, and her back was really red. I'm sure the Arizona sun wasn't helping any either. I immediately looked to google for advice and found it at http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=34705.

I read that chickens plucking and eating the feathers of others is a sign of a protein deficiency. I was mostly just relieved to learn that our chickens weren't vicious cannibals. So I went to the grocery store and bought some yogurt to up the girls' protein.


After only a week, I was noticing a big difference in the Ameracauna. She is starting to grow feathers where there were previously none.

Before.
After.

A couple funny pictures of them eating the yogurt.

Yogurt on the foot.
Notice the yogurt covering the beaks. They will peck it off of each other's beaks, and they will also wipe their beaks of in the dirt. Not the cleanest animals.

Broody Chickens and Disciplining Chickens

So our Barred Plymouth Rock (black and white hen) has gone broody. For anyone who is unaware of what this means (as I was), it means the hen's hormones have taken over, and she is trying to make eggs hatch. So despite the fact that there is no way any of our eggs are fertile, she keeps sitting on them. Needless to say, egg production is down. Every day I have to go to the nesting box and kick her out. One way to solve this problem is to get fertile eggs and just let her do it. (Totally out of the question with our cats and their bird-killing history.) And the other option is to keep kicking her out and wait for her to get over it... it's been about a week, and she is not over it.

Also, I found myself wanting to discipline this chicken today. The whole pecking order thing drives me crazy. We are left with one gorgeous hen, the Black Australorp, who is obviously the top of the pecking order. The way we know this is because she is not missing a feather. The other two are missing their fair share. The Barred Plymouth Rock gets picked on by the Australorp, but apparently is more than happy to pick on the Ameraucana, who is just shy and sweet.

I put some food out for them this afternoon, (we are limiting the amount out at once because we lost a lot to a storm) and the poor Ameraucana can barely get near the food because the Plymouth keeps pecking at her. Since I was in there, I felt like protecting her and kept shooing the Plymouth away, but to no avail. Finally I had it. I reached in and grabbed the Plymouth by the leg. And as I was holding her upside-down by one leg, with her flapping her wings, I started to remember that she is a chicken, and this is probably not getting my point across. At least she knows I am top of the pecking order though...

One Month Down

I am happy to say after a month of having these crazy girls, that we still have them. There have been ups and downs and some craziness (I was pretty much ready to get rid of them at the end of the first week), but we enjoy them. Here are a few videos so you can see them in action.

Playing Dead

Thought I had a dead chicken on my hands this morning. I looked out the window to see Aussie (the Black Australorp) laying so flat and smashed looking on the ground, I thought she was lifeless. Turns out it was just her way of dealing with 100 degree weather for the 30 minutes or so they don't have much shade during the day.


Despite the Arizona heat, these chickens are really thriving. We are getting 2-3 eggs each day, and there are only three chickens, so it is just as good if not better than we hoped for.

Still a bit surprised we haven't been confronted by anyone about having them. An AC guy came by to service our unit today, and he didn't even notice them, so they are relatively inconspicuous.

A New Record

No, you aren't seeing triple. We actually got three eggs today! I am pretty excited about that. And believe me with all of the stress I have been going through today with how outspoken the girls have been, I deserve three eggs. I'm shocked someone from the HOA wasn't pounding on my door by noon.

You know when people imitate the sound a chicken makes and they do that 'bawk, bawk, bawk, BAKAWWK!!!' (Hopefully that was phonetic enough.), well that is exactly what the chickens sounded like.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that was one egg from each chicken. I am a little sad because the Ameraucana was supposed to lay blue/green eggs, but nevertheless I am still happy to have them all laying.

I Love Eggs!

It's funny to think about all the things you made assumptions about as a kid. Half the time about things you didn't even realize you were making assumptions about. Growing up I had a lot of assumptions about eggs.

They were all white and about the same size.

And the only way you ate them was scrambled.To be perfectly honest, I thought the only way you could scramble an egg was in the microwave.

I liked eggs, and had them for special family breakfasts. Now I don't know what I would do without having them always available. I guess I am only thinking about this because we are on a bit of an egg fast. We're trying to let our egg storage grow so we aren't constantly waiting for a chicken to lay an egg. So far our chickens have laid six eggs (not bad for their first five days after being relocated). One I just found cracked in our backyard (never thought I'd be so sad about a cracked egg). One (the first one) we ate.

And we currently have four sitting in a carton.I purposely laid them all on their side in the carton because I love looking at the differences between them. I'm not sure who the first one belongs two, but the middle two were laid by our Aussie, and the last one was laid by the Plymy. I look forward to finding each egg because I know they are all going to be a little different.

Now if these girls would be a little more discrete when they lay an egg, then I could relax. It's like they want to announce it to the neighborhood. I know they are proud of themselves and all, but I'd like to keep them around.