The Nuggets are Growing Up!

The six little chicks that hatched a few weeks ago in the incubator have been growing well under "Mother Whisp" and her care.  The eggs were a mix of eggs from our grey and black silkie hens, Dazzle and Licorice, potentially fertilized by one of our three roosters (cream legbar, cream legbar-production red mix, or Icelandic-Isbar mix).  Six hatched on June 6 and 7th, and all have done well.

They spent their couple of weeks indoors with their adoptive "mom" because it was still pretty cold out and we were having frosts, and they needed to keep warm.

Eventually they went out to the coop with the "big birds" and they stayed in their own separated section in the coop for a while.  Here they were on June 18 shortly after being moved.

Now they're integrated into the whole flock but they are in the "awkward adolescent" phase where they just look a bit gawky and scraggly.  I am pretty sure that at least 1 is a rooster, but the other 5 remain suspiciously limited in the comb department, suggesting 5 hens, which would be a real stroke of luck.  We'll see.  Here they are a few days ago.  One of the darker ones is hiding behind Whisp on the right side, just behind her tail.

This little white one has an interesting patch of black feathers on her lower back.

You can see it in this picture as well.

None of them are Whisp's babies (she was already sitting on fake eggs when I started collecting, which means she wasn't laying because she was already broody).  Still, there's a solid white one.

One is almost completely black - probably Licorice's chick.  Licorice is a solid black silkie. The other dark ones are all mottled.

This one has a little bit of attitude!

Soon, they'll be on their way to laying eggs, if they're hens! They haven't got names yet - they seem to need to grow into those.  This one doesn't have much leg feathering, but the rest all do, and one has silkie toes as well.  It will be interesting to see how much silkie character they retain.  One thing I notice is that all of them seem to have a slight head crest of feathers, which must be a result of the silkie genetics.

Friday's Hunt v. 4.10

Today is a chicken-themed Friday's Hunt, even though the prompts are not necessarily chicken-related.  I am really excited about my new little flock and can't help but share my news about them via the blog.

Today's prompts from Eden Hills are:  Starts with J, Car, and Outside.

Starts with J
I have decided that one of the red hens is named Juniper.  She is blind in one eye.  I don't know how that happened - she came to me that way.  It does not slow her down and she is a lovely hen who doesn't seem to mind sitting on my lap for a while for cuddles.

The hen on the right is Juniper.  The little bantam on the left is Sienna.

Car
So, how to incorporate "car" into a chicken themed picture?!  Well, since the chickens arrived on September 4 (Monday), we have had 10 eggs.  That's 10 eggs in 6 days, which is not bad, especially since the silkies are not yet laying.  How does this relate to car?  I lined up all the eggs on the edge of the sun roof on my car!  My car is a 2001 VW Jetta.  It is my 4th Jetta and I have loved them all.

The five brown eggs are from the brown hen that isn't Juniper, but she hasn't told me her name yet.

The four white eggs are from Sienna, the little bantam hen, although for a banty, she lays fairly large eggs.  The egg on the far right is Juniper's first egg since she has been here.

Outside
A little more work was done outside today.  I was so happy today to have my coop-building guys return to help put up a frame around the coop fence, and install some wire mesh on it (combination of fencing I had laying around plus some chicken wire).  Here you can see that they built a raised framework above the fence so that the wire would be at a suitable height for me to walk around inside the coop yard.

This means that the little flock will be safe from hawks, but will be able to enjoy the outside environment.  I am not entirely sure if any of them had been outside before.

They did not seem to know how to scratch around in the dirt, except for Sienna - you can just see her in the picture above, next to Juniper, already with her eye on the dirt area.  The guys lifted a row of patio stones for the chickens to have an area to make their dirt/dust bath.  By the end of the afternoon, the red hens had caught on.  The silkies are still bewildered.  I think they have been kept in a cage for most of their life so far.