Wing It Ranch

[WingItRanch]

I guess the nice dust bath I made for them is not good enough...

 

[WingItRanch]

I got what I believe is my first double yolker today! It's huge compared to my others. Weighs 85 grams while my average is 55.

In other news... my cockerel has been showing some sass. He's flogged me once before and I calmly walked towards him until he ran away. Well, tonight he tried again. I decided to try the method of gently pinning him down as a dominant rooster might. Once he completely calmed down, I released him and he stayed down until I walked back a few steps. I watched him for a while and he seemed fine afterwards. We'll see if that does the trick. I really like him but that was his 2nd strike and I don't actually need a rooster.

This is the method I used:

 

[Bawkbok]

Wow, that's a huge egg. I know it seems like a bonus to get a double yolker but hopefully the hen will balance out and not do that anymore.
Good for you with wrangling your rooster. Sounds like you've got that under control. Can you come train my dog?

 

[WingItRanch]

Thankfully, double yolks are much more common than the reproductive issue my other one had. I definitely wouldn't wish that to be a constant! Poor little chicken.

Dogs are the best! If only roosters were as easy to train.

Side note: when I was little, I had a black pet pig named Salty. She was a house pig and we trained her to use the dog door to go potty. She was adorable and super easy to train. Unfortunately we learned the hard way that there's no such thing as teacup pigs.... she grew HUGE and started charging anyone not in the family so we have to give her up.

 

[WingItRanch]

I attempted some supervised free range time today. I was armed with a shovel in case I needed to shoo off a hawk and a bucket full of black soldier fly larva to convince them to go back into the run.

It was a test run so only 10 minutes and I waited until dusk when I knew they'd be thinking about bed time. Hoping that meant they wouldn't stray too far.

It was a success! No hawk appearances and they all came running when I shook the bucket. I was worried about my "special" girl because she doesn't really understand treats or danger or really anything. But the Ancona actually helped me out and basically chased her back into the run.

I attempted this once when they were little (maybe 8 weeks old) and a hawk dive bombed them within 20 seconds of letting them out. They barely made it out of the door before it came diving. It was chaos. I wasn't planning on attempting free ranging again but we've had crows scare off the hawks lately and I figured short supervised time might work.

They LOVED it! Played in the leaves. The cockerel was a little anxious and kept looking up and around. Good boy protecting his ladies!

 

[WingItRanch]

Some updates. Supervised free ranging is going well. The cockerel has his hands full trying to keep all the ladies where he can see them. Watching him herd them with his wings is so funny! I need to catch it on video.

Speaking of the big guy. I think we may have an understanding now. He hasn't shown any aggression lately. Time will tell!

Still no eggs from my last remaining freeloader. Aka my "special" girl- an Easter Egger. 37 weeks old lol