Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[Fancychooklady]

Lol we call it the ' sin bin '.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Ah, I thought you had already put them in the naughty corner for a bit. Yes, throw them into the rooster box. A bit of solitary confinement might make them rethink their behavior. Not that I know if you can train a chicken to distinguish between allowed and forbidden things, but dogs you clearly can. Our older lab knows perfectly well that food up on tables and counters is off limits. But still she sometimes steals something, and when you see her do it, sh immediately puts her ears back and her tail between her legs (while stuffing the rest down at an even faster pace). A couple of days ago Karin threw her into the toilet after she had stolen a sandwich. She then left for work, and I was supposed to release her after a while. Five hours later I got a feeling I had forgotten something, and lo and behold, she was still locked into the little 1 square meter toilet in total darkness. Didn't even try to steal anything for a few days after that though, until yesterday when she did it again. This time she was made to sit on a chair next to the table with a plate of food on it for 15 minutes. I'm hoping we can get this behavior back in check, our dogs are starting to resemble a pack of wolves soon. No manners at all.

We did have them in the small coop for about 2 days, but it was not long enough. I will go find a quick video of a 'trained' rescue chicken
amazes me everytime. I have no intention of that sort of thing but it does show their cognitive power.

Before I started reading on this site, it never occurred to me that chickens would need a naughty box!

My chicks arrived safely, vigorous and much tinier than the feed store chicks I'd gotten previously. I ordered 10 and got 3 additional "packing peanuts", but it's like your hatches, they are straight run. So it's wait and see now. They are blue, black, splash, lavender and lemon cuckoo orpingtons. Just got one quick photo to share.

The 'naughty corner' is less to teach the bad bird a lesson, and more to allow the hierarchy to reestablish. The mean bird/s then become to newcomers and (hopefully) submit to the new structure. I can't pick which Rock it is so if they can't get it together they both can have a time out!

That awesome. They come in such a nice array of colours too. The feed store chicks may have had a couple days jumps start on these ones, I was just looking at our's this morning amazed at the rapid size gain.

They have Save a chick in the water and I mixed some of the feed with water just to get them started. They are eating both the wet and dry. As soon as I dipped their beaks, they all took a drink. I'm pretty impressed. Like you said yesterday, they're pretty durable. Thanks

Perfect.

Congratulations- glad they arrived safely. You'll have a very nice flock combined with them. My orps are very reliable daily layers.
Oh, and yes, I have a penalty box for mine too. Lol. I have quite a few roosters. They get along quite well but occasionally one of them needs to be separated. I put the aggressor in a pen alone while the rest of the roosters reestablish the hierarchy. When he's released he's usually content at the bottom of the order. Most of the time they're good boys except when one of them decides he wants to be the new leader.

Hi Pam! Other than Mr Pecker who liked to have a peck, we never had a naughty boy, nothing too aggressive, then again, none of them stayed with us longer than 6 months either.

How are your new hatchlings going with their mum?

Lol we call it the ' sin bin '.

A very apt name!

 

[Hershy]

Lol we call it the ' sin bin '.

Love it!

 

[vehve]

I'm a 12 year old at heart. Mr Pecker gets me every time, just start snickering by my self.

Sin Bin sort of sounds like a place where a lot of one dollar bills are placed in the undergarments of scantily clad women. We don't really have strip clubs in Finland. I think this is because the smallest bill is 5€, and who would want a lot of loose chain dangling about their underwear?

 

[Wrightsx4]

Hahaha naughty naughty.

I'll try to get a pic of our baby chick today. I never found any chicks young enough to fool Betty before she left the nest with the little one. So it's just Betty and her very spoiled baby. I'm pretty sure it's a boy. It has a pea comb so at 5 weeks I should know for sure.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Mental images of Felix with a handful of change and a very big smile hahahah

One of the Rock sisters was acting a bit strange this afternoon, hanging around the nest but distracted at the same time.

I went down to close the door after dark and she was sitting on the edge of the nest box. I stuck her (without being pecked) on a roost and there was a small pink egg behind her! I have a feeling this is the second layer.

Our Araucana that came back into laying seems to have stopped again too. Have not seen a blue egg for a few days now.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Here's our little one. Ignoring the primaries, all of the new growth on the wing bows, chest, neck, underside - all white possibly salmon. The only combination that would make this coloring a female would be if this were somehow Solomon's baby. Seems like it would have a beard though, although it's 25% New Hampshire. 75% fluff face...which it's not. Chances are slim that it's Solomon's since he departed shortly before the eggs were gathered and had only had a couple free range opportunities in the two weeks prior. This chick looks very EE but the mom is an EE/NH.

 

[vehve]

Now, now Ben, I don't do that sort of thing. At least I'm not admitting anything.

Our POL Alho's are doing the distracted egg nest thing too, only difference being no little pink eggs from them. Veera made egg #7 today, a whopper at 32g. Laid it in morning this time, so she's abandoned her rhythm. She's still sticking to the norm of the breed, should lay 8-10 eggs in 10 days, we have 7 in 9 days now. And with the first eggs too!

We have been doing some garden work today again, cleared away some moss and grass to get more rock showing in our yard. We also decided to introduce Kiusa to our flock for the first time. She lunged for the chickens immediately. I said "NO!". After that it was like this:





She just shadowed them around the yard, picking up after them (yuck). Went with them to the wooded side, and even sniffed Taneli the head roo's hind end like dogs usually do each other. Every time we try to tech her something new, I'm amazed how easily she catches on. Even if the chickens sprinted past her, she let them be.

 

[Hershy]

Now, now Ben, I don't do that sort of thing. At least I'm not admitting anything. Our POL Alho's are doing the distracted egg nest thing too, only difference being no little pink eggs from them. Veera made egg #7 today, a whopper at 32g. Laid it in morning this time, so she's abandoned her rhythm. She's still sticking to the norm of the breed, should lay 8-10 eggs in 10 days, we have 7 in 9 days now. And with the first eggs too! We have been doing some garden work today again, cleared away some moss and grass to get more rock showing in our yard. We also decided to introduce Kiusa to our flock for the first time. She lunged for the chickens immediately. I said "NO!". After that it was like this: She just shadowed them around the yard, picking up after them (yuck). Went with them to the wooded side, and even sniffed Taneli the head roo's hind end like dogs usually do each other. Every time we try to tech her something new, I'm amazed how easily she catches on. Even if the chickens sprinted past her, she let them be.

Great dog. I have a 6 mo old pup and there's no way he could control himself like that!

 

[vehve]

Great dog.
I have a 6 mo old pup and there's no way he could control himself like that!

She's three years old already, but we used to live in an area with loads of rabbits so we tried to take away the urge to chase live animals from an early point. With the labs, not a problem, but the dachshund has too strong instincts for that. My only worry is how she (Kiusa) will react to wounded birds when hunting after familiarizing herself with the chickens.

The method we used was a remote controlled spray collar, took about a day or two to teach them not to chase the bunnies. Now we only need aural commands.