Since I haven't posted any pictures of the new hens we got I thought I would share this one I took this morning. They are getting along very well, and our rooster sure is excited. We had to shut them out of the garage because they kept laying eggs in the horses stall! Silly chickens!
And immediatly AFTER we kicked them out of the garage they decided to make nice spots in the dirt behiind our swing right by the front door!
AND...we also found three eggs hidden the other day...so instead of chancing it and eating them we decided to give them to the mean bird. She is an odd hen that our neighbor gave us. Not sure what breed...but we call her flattop. She was attacking our rooster so we put her in a cage in the hen house until she can learn to play nice. In the meantime she has adopted the three eggs...here she is sittting on them. It we try to touch them she attacks us! Any ideas what she is? (Other then mean)
Last one...my youngest brother is the toughest guy I know! He is huge, and looks like some kind of body builder. Last week when he came over we let him hang out with 'Bob' our Maskovy duckling. I think we found the softer side of my brother. Awww...
Aaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwww that would be a cutie pic of Bob and your brother if Bob didn't have that possessed lil glare in his eye........lol
Broody hens can be vicious so maybe that's all the problem is with "Floppy"........
They all look great, thanks for sharing !!!!!
~Julie
Hahaha...yes...Bob does look a little possessed. I had to use red eye removal on the picture because of the lights...so it came out looking a little scary. He follows us around the house and we have joked about finding diapers for him or potty training when he gets bigger because he likes to sit with us and watch Tv. He also eats all the crickets in the house!
I just added an egg from our black sexlink to the 3 under 'floppy' she had laid one of her own...so I did a trade off since i know hers are not fertilized. She layed the lightest shade of brown i have EVER seen! I almost thought it was just a white egg, but compared to our store eggs it was certainly not. I wiill take a picture and post it in a minute. :)
Ok...here it is. Do you think she will get nicer eventually to where we can let her our with our other chickens? She is the smallest one...but goes looking for our rooster to fight. She kicked the crud out of him the other day.
Wow...sure did blur my writing! :) Floppy's egg is the one in the middle.
What a great looking flock! I have no idea what kind Mean Chicken is, maybe she's mean because she got a bad feather-do!
I cannot wait for eggs! Marshall my Maran roo started crowing, badly but he is crowing! I think I have about 2-3 months before eggs!
Again, great lookin flock!
Thank you! Our chickens before were very well taken care of, and these new hens came from a really good farm. We have a neighbor who raises them, and I swear it PETA saw how they looked he would be in trouble! His chickens just attack each other and they are so stressed out and none of them have many feathers. We got mean chicken from him. :) Maybe its not the breed so much the home she came from. She is doing a good job of egg sitting...so if she can hatch some new chickens then she will have served a good purpose.
Our rooster started crowing about 10 weeks...and it was horrible! Actually...our rooster that died started what I called crowing at about 2 weeks! I have video of it because no one beleived me! They were in the house because they were so young and my RIR would jump up onto the waterer and first thing in the morning make this really odd sound (kinda like vibrating your tongue). That was when we decided he was a rooster...and low and behold he was!
Our rooster now is finally starting to perfect his masculine crow. We used to just sit and laugh at him because it was so funny to watch him shake his whole body, stretch out his neck, and flap his wings just to get a really pathetic sound out. :)
We do love our chickens!
Our youngest RIR layed her first egg today...it was very sad. :) This was nest to an egg from another RIR who has been laying for a couple weeks now. What do we do now? Should we eat it?
No way! You should take a pin, make a small hole in the top and bottom and blow the egg out, then keep the shell as a treasure! Our first egg was so unbelievably tiny ( like yours) that we did that and we have in on a little shelf in the kitchen just for fun.
Mean chicken is beautiful! I have no ideas what she is, other than very pretty and mean! She'll work through it.
That is a great idea! I think Ryan has his hopes set on the tinest litte fried egg he has ever seen! I did see her next to our black sexlink...and other then the head and tail (mean chicken has a tail like a leghorn crossed with a a turkey) they looked very a like. I guess what she is doesnt matter too much. We are getting a big egg from her every 48 hours..so that is not too shaby. Plus she likes sitting on those eggs. We let her out yesterday to get some excesize...and our rooster followed her around and put her in her place as often as he needed. She seems to know he is in charge now.
How many hours a day should a hen sit on eggs? We are wondering if we should allow another hen to sit since mean hen seems to get off of them frequetly throughout the day. She does sit on them all night, and for a few hours at a time throughout the day.
Wow thats a small egg! I have a couple macaw eggs that weren't fertile so I pulled them. It was too late to blow them out (that had been sat on for 2wks) so a friend told me to just sit them in the sun on a window sill and they naturally dry out.
So if your full size chicken lays that tiny of an egg at first I wonder how small my silver sebright eggs will be? LOL
Oh yeah! She was the only one who had a first egg that was this tiny...or at least she was the only one who laid her first egg somewhere we could see it! Hahaha...maybe they were laying tiny eggs all along but we just never found them because they were so small!
Either way...we are going to keep it in the fridge for a while just to tease people who come for dinner, "Hey...could you grab me an egg out of the fridge?" Hahaha...it will be fun to see other people's reactions!
On another note...my pregnany mare (she is due anyday) decided to roll in her stall this morning at 4 am. I woke up and checked the monitor and saw she was laying clear on her side. I grabbed Ryan and we ran out there. She had pinned all four legs under the corral pannel. Her stall is 10ft wide, and 20 ft long. She was barley breathing, and couldnt keep her eyes open. Ryan grabbed her front legs, and I took the hear and we rolled her over (easier said then done). After a minute we got her standing again. The baby seems to be ok, but I am affraid that if we hadnt found her when we did...she may not have made it. We are doubling the size of her stall tonight.
Just a word to everyone...even when you think your animals are safe...things like this can happen out of the blue. We were lucky...SO lucky. Please say a little prayer that the baby is ok...hopefully he comes soon.
Melissa
