Growing my little flock

[DonyaQuick]

It looks like Dimple is wearing a leg warmer!

OMG I can't unsee that now goes with her dancing habits!

Poor Dimple! I hope she heals quickly and gets back to rooster dancing her little heart out.

9 pounds!?! Mr Monster is growing into his name!

Dimple's still a speed demon even with her little boot! I'm hoping that bodes well for a quick recovery.

It perhaps should have been a clue to me about Monster's still increasing size that he's the only roo I can actually use as a pillow while hugging him - to the point I do risk falling asleep and snoring into his saddle feathers if I'm running too low on sleep during morning hug time. Not really a graceful nap...more like the way you can end up sleeping face-down on a rolled up jacket in front of you in economy airline seating LOL but still not something any of my other roos are quite big enough to permit.

 

[DonyaQuick]

I can lead a Goob to dirt but I can't make him bathe! All I can make him do is scratch around excitedly and giggle at me lol. I was trying to convince him to do something about the the sweaty fake fur feel he's developing from his extended indoor stay (since I really didn't want anything getting in his eye or other wounds until healed up). This is actually his bad side; he's doing a lot better.

 

[DonyaQuick]

So it's looking suspiciously like I have 2 boys in this batch of chicks (the Bs)...

I suppose it's possible that the developmental feathering difference could yet be totally meaningless, but the tail vs no tail and long vs short wings are REALLY pronounced in these guys and just getting more obvious as they go. It's not something I've ever seen in my other birds - I've seen variation in feathering rate, but not this sharply defined. These chicks are a couple days over 2 weeks old today and still not a single pin feather on those B butts. It exactly matches what I've read described for bantam cochins, which I gather is a sex-linked development pattern. Just can't find any info on whether that holds for large size cochin too.

At any rate, it's a good thing the new bachelor pad is nearing completion! I'll be putting the HWC on the run for it this weekend.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Who's miraculously still got two eyes, jumped up on a big pile of lumber before I could grab him, caused an avalanche of 2x4s that he rode all the way down, and then walked away from the mess like nothing happened? That would be this Goob! He has clearly learned nothing from his prior accident. Here he's helping me with the new bachelor pad build.

Meanwhile, these 2.5-week-olds are enormous. They don't fit properly under broody mom Scruffy anymore lol.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Arg - it's not just Dimple with a hurt foot now! One of my two actual green eggers, Hobbit, turned up with double bumble feeties today. It was hot so no one wanted to stay on my lap for long except for Hobbit - she wanted to burrow into my arm pit and stay there both yesterday and today. Yesterday she laid some kind of godzilla egg, so I thought that was the issue, but she was still at it today so clearly something else was wrong. Took me a bit to figure out it was her feet since there wasn't much to go on visually. Again I think I caught it early - no redness, minimal swelling, small scabs, and everything was pretty near the surface and easy to remove. So...miss Hobbit will be sporting two leg warmers for a bit and I'll have to get quite a bit more of that wrap stuff.

Then I also discovered two extremely small, fully healed bumbles on Little Fuzzy, one of my barred girls who was originally the slow-developing runt of the bunch (and is now enormous - she should actually be called Big Fat Fuzzy these days but that's another topic lol). I don't need to treat her feet because the scabs just popped off, tiny kernels intact on it, leaving smooth healthy-looking skin undereath. So I just bluekoted the area to be safe and otherwise left it alone. However, that clearly meant there is/was something IN the enclosure causing foot issues to have 3 birds with this issue at roughly the same time and zero foot issues previously. There may be others in the flock with extremely minor issues I haven't found yet - I haven't been able to check everyone with the heat being what it is right now.

My first guess for a bumble culprit was the slanted chunnel connecting the run to the shed coop. The grippy strips I had installed last year didn't do well over the winter and the chickens had been peeling them away slowly. I don't think those strips specifically were causing the bumbles, since they aren't sharp or splitery, but by being torn away it was exposing the plywood more - and there was an edge at the very top of the ramp that had become exposed and was looking splintery in a couple places. So I went out in the heat and installed a rubber mat over the whole ramp and wrapped the mat over that edge. The rubber is kind of soft so I don't know how well it will hold up over time to chicken claws, but it should do for this summer at least.

My second guess for bumbles is unfortunately HWC on the run doors. Not because there are any exposed sharp nibs on the inside - I was very careful about that. Rather, my birds crush against the doors every morning and actually try to climb the mesh with their feet when they see me coming. Dimple is the worst offender for regular climbing attempts, but pretty much all of them do it at least occasionally. That situation will be harder to fix - I'll have to put something on the bottom part of the door or something if that's what the issue is rather than the ramp. I'm not sure what to put there; maybe as a temorary fix I can just use some of the floor protector roll I used for wind breaks over the winter.

 

[DonyaQuick]

3.5 weeks old now!

 

[DonyaQuick]

The Goob man helping assemble the auto door for the new bachelor flock enclosure.

This boy is so strange. He is not afraid of power tools and construction noise. I don't let him near dangerous tools in action, but he would be right up in the middle of the business given the option. However, he is very specifically terrified of the ramp I built to the roost area. Nothing else - just that one item. Staple gun? Awesome. The coop itself? Neato! Stand on the ramp up to the coop? OH GOD OH NO NOT THE RAMP NO NO-but oh hey cool drill you got there. I guess one more question answered about how he hurt himself so bad a while back. Goober been in the in-progress new setup off and on to give him more space and enrichment, but I'm going to keep him separate for some time while that eye continues to improve slowly. He'll just get his own modest space once his brothers are moved into the new one. I will honestly miss bringing him into the house at night...I won't miss the 5am crowing right down the hall, but he's otherwise so much more like a weird little dog than a normal chicken.

 

[2ndTink]

He is well named for sure!

I'm glad he's still healing up, maybe he can come to terms with the ramp? We stapled this plastic mesh stuff to our ramp for good traction. Do you think he might be slipping on it? Maybe he just doesn't like the texture of it on his tootsies?

 

[DonyaQuick]

Bachelor pad is officially in use! It's see-but-no-touch or a bit with Squeak and Tengu. Tengu is very nervous about the space and late-bloomer Squeak is still a little crazy at times. So far they are doing really good though; no fighting, no threatening, etc. which is way better than I'd hoped for. Still going to be cautious for a while though because Squeak still gets over-excited pretty easily.

He is well named for sure!

I'm glad he's still healing up, maybe he can come to terms with the ramp? We stapled this plastic mesh stuff to our ramp for good traction. Do you think he might be slipping on it? Maybe he just doesn't like the texture of it on his tootsies?

I covered the new ramp with some ribbed rubber mat stuff so it's grippy. Goober's fine with it lying flat on the ground. He wasn't at all afraid of jumping on a stack of a precarious stack of 2x4s of roughly the same height, so it can't just be that he's afraid of climbing/jumping or being up high. That's why I assume it must be he hurt himself on the ramp of the previous bachelor flock setup - it's just too specific for an animal that otherwise seems to be without fear. Right now he's in another smaller enclosure with a very small ramp...which he's also being weird about and not wanting to touch now that I'm actually paying attention to it. It's a much smaller/lower ramp though, so maybe that can be a baby step for him to get used to ramps again.