Chick Watching

I was just sitting out in the coop, which is currently divided nearly in two with chicken wire. The silkies and me on one side and my three and four week olds on the other. Their personalities (and maybe breed atributes) are more obvious than ever.

The three Ameraucanas are very active and are frequently seen chasing each other other around. It almost always is one of them that will run off with a peice of sod and the others will chase. Horus (for he has the eye of Ra) the little roo was brazen from the start and continues to be, but he seems good natured so far. Isis has lost the ladybug marking on her back now that she is mostly feathered out, but the little tiara-like glyph on her head is still discernable.

Day, the ISA Brown, was the first to be the most curious about me and now the little brown Ameraucana, Nephthys, also steps right up as soon as my hand appears. You can see Day and the make-shift feeder in the foreground. The two Welsummers are in the back.

I think I can now distinguish between the male and female Welsummers. The male I think has the bigger comb and his feathers have developed an almost partridge look to them. By contrast the other's body is now nearly uniformly brown and has just a hint of a comb. She tends to be a little shier and he is usually part of the crush trying to get to oatmeal from my palm.

The Black Stars are all now decidely hen like, but it's the little Buff Orp, Charlotte (after Miss Lucas who went into Kent) who has learned first to sleep with her head under her wing.

The chicks at four and five weeks

I've meaning to post chick pics quite a while, but life been busy. Still it's no excuse for forgetting my mom's birthday. Sorry Mom!

Here are the chicks as they were on the 11th. Notice the bronze breast feathers on the Black Star in the middleground. That's the Buff Orpington in the fore and Horus the Ameraucana roo-to-be in the background. The light Ameraucana hen-to-be is on the end with the Cleopatra eye.

This is a pic for comparison of the light Amerauraca and Horus at 5 days or so old. I like the ladybug on her back and the glyph on her head.

Here is another size comparison group, a Welsummer at five das or so and at about two weeks. I've spread her wing to show the feather growth. Both pics are a bit blurry.

This is Day (short for Daylight as my littlest nieghbour named their matching swap NightLight) at four weeks. She's looking quite ratty at the moment with her brown feathers coming in all patchy. And this was her at 12 days.

This is one of the Black Stars. She's now bigger than a Starling, but not quite Crow sized. This is one of the smaller of the five. She is just getting her first bronze feathers.

Here is the brown Ameraucana. You can really see the fluffy cheeks. In the last day or two longer fluffy neck feathers have developed one the light coloured one.

More chick pics will happen on Friday when we get our batch of roo chicks we're raising as meat birds.

More coop construction

The coop is looking pretty good now. The chickens are in and seem to be living comfortably, and we've been working on building a run for them. Initially Laura had built a temporary run out of a few posts and some chicken wire, so she could work inside the coop without disturbing Elvis and Priscilla.

First off, here's a picture of the construction site. The weather has really warmed up, which is nice but it brings hordes of black flies with it.

I asked our neighbour Terry to come over with his tractor and post-hole auger, which made life much easier. We put in posts for two gates and the corners of the chicken run. I also dug a trench so the wire fencing can be buried a few inches.

Next up, Mom helped me put up the posts for the gates and corners. We had some pressure treated 6x6 posts left over after building our deck, so we just used them.

Then Laura and I put up the fencing.

While Laura filled in the trench, I built the front and back gates.

And here's a picture of Elvis and Priscilla in their new home!

Elvis and Priscilla are in their new home!

Over the last few days, we've made good progress on the coop:
* put up the rest of the interior sheeting
* built a rooster box and closed it in
* built the chicken ramps and the human door, including hinges and latches
* covered a broken window (d'oh!)
* tacked down plastic on the foor

and last but not least,

* Brought Elvis and Priscilla over to their new home!

We got the coop "done enough" late last night (we had to bring out a light for the last work items -- good thing we ran a heavy-duty extension cord out there). Then we emptied the wheelbarrow and dug out our big cat carrier. Then off we trundled to our neighbour's house for a late-night chicken abduction. ;-)

We put down the bedding, got the food and water ready, then opened the carrier. The chickens showed absolutely no interest in getting out of the carrier! So we just lef them there.

This morning we peeked in on them and they were strutting around like they owned the place.

Today Laura plans on putting in some fencing, so Elvis and Priscilla can go outside. We also have a few pictures, so we'll put up another blog posting later.

Grant

More chicken coop progress.

But not enough!

Sunday was a "good progress" day. I started working on the chicken coop at about 10:30. I put screening in over the windows and then installed the windows on hinges. I tried to put insulation in the ceiling, but that's a two-person job. So I started building the door. I also drilled a hole for the extension cord, for the lights/heat lamp.

We're getting there! A couple more evenings and we'll be done! Laura and I finished putting the insulation in the roof and put the vapour barrier up. Then we started putting up the sheeting inside, until it got so dark that we couldn't see to nail anymore. ;-)

I took some pictures but they're still in the camera. I'll put them up in a day or so.

Tonight is the first game of the Nortel Golf League! I'm very excited, but in a way I wish it didn't start till next week. I want to finish the coop as fast as possible because Laura wants to get Elvis and Priscilla out of the neighbour's coop/horse stall, and I want to get the chick brooder out of the spare room (they're really starting to stink).

I think it'll be a couple of days and then we'll be able to get the chickens in their new home. What's left to do:

• finish the interior sheeting,


• build the door and chicken ramps,


• then hang the brooder boxes and a few roosts, and finally


• put up the fencing.

Once that's all done, we should be able to bring over Elvis and Priscilla, and hopefully put the brooder out there as well.

The chicks are getting bigger and the spend less time huddled under the heat lamp now. We picked up another small batch of 6 chicks on Friday. They're various types. I'll leave the description of the chicks for Laura in another post.

Grant