We bought chicks a while back as you can see *here*. 15 Chicks total, all pullets and everyone said “Get extras, you’ll loose a few the first couple of weeks”.
My first chicks to raise myself and all have thrived! Weeks & weeks flew by and I didn’t loose not one single chick!!! Now they are beautiful little chickens, fully feathered, funny and slightly obnoxious. They grew too big for their chick pens and needed a new place. We had planned on building a coop, but as life likes to do, it’s thrown a few monkey wrenches in our well planned plans.
Jerimiah had a fist sized hole knocked in his diesel tank…couldn’t find a salvaged/used tank, so had to order a new one from Dodge…Only $534.06 for a stupid plastic tank!!! Shortly prior, his welder was spraying diesel everywhere and had to be repaired…
Needless to say, the coop isn’t built. So I’ve let them have the old rabbit room/future milk room as a night home & during the day they go out with the bottle bucks to scratch around in the dirt, eat grass and catch bugs. I’m dreading the intense labor that will be required to clean out that room once I move them, but at least they have a safe shelter…
So far, this lil arrangement has been working out great….. Until tragedy struck..
Sam & Tonka were playing their goat games, jumping around, head butting ect. ect.
Sam rears up on his hind legs to hit Tonka, Tonka swerves around, catches him on his side and over & down Sam goes…
Down, Down, Down & with a heavy *THUNK* lands on one of my Ameraucanas!!
Poor chicken did a split second, wings spread freak out and with an “Acccckkkk!” sound straight from a cartoon, she was gone.
Poor Sambo got off the flattened chicken, nosed it and looked at me with a face that I swear was nothing but bewildered.
Right now I’m considering grabbing a few more Ameraucanas from Acco before their chick season is over so by laying age I’ll hopefully still have some rainbow layers to lay the colorful eggs Clayton is so fond of.
I’m no longer smug about my chicken rearing skills…. I’ve just had a bit of luck is all.
In happier news, I'm posting a few pictures of the surviving chickens at the bottom of this blog entry…they have grown so BIG! The Ameraucanas and Reds are the most friendly….the Jersey Black Giants are pushy and are learning from the Reds & Ameraucanas that people = food. My Marans are still skittish, despite my best bribes and they are the ones I generally have to chase & catch to put up for the night, but hopefully they’ll warm up to people soon.
Shayla is working on naming the chickens…. One of the Reds likes to sit in her lap while she pets it… I asked her what she was going to name her favorite chicken…. Fully expecting to hear “Tinkerbell”, “Lucy” or “Carly”…..What do I hear instead??
RICCARDO!!
LOL!! I have no idea where on earth she came up with such a name, but we apparently are the owners of the ubber friendly lil’ red hen named Riccardo.
Lets just hope Riccardo is swift of foot and is on a vigilant watch for those falling goats!
The Chicken "Riccardo" up in front on the right..
7 comments:
Hi Crystal, I wanted to thank you for visiting my blog, taking time to comment, and becoming a follower! I am returning the favor.
It is hard to lose that first chicken. :( We ordered 24 initially, lost 4 Barred Hollands to some sort of genetic weakness, and then I dropped the heat lamp on one of the Ameraucanas and killed it. I know that horrible feeling of irresponsibility!
Aren't their personalities fun though? Interesting how these are breed traits as well as individual personalities.
Thank you! I've had chickens before but purchased them as adults....these are my first chicks to raise & I've become surprisingly attached to them.
They are highly entertaining.....we are going to Acco on Friday to pick up a few more I think....after this loss I'm a lil paranoid I suppose, even if it was a freak accident.
Thanks for following my blog :-) I've really enjoyed reading yours & will stop in often for updates.
Have a great day!!!
Chickens are wonderful!! I really enjoy reading your blog.
Oh my! What a freak accident. I've seen a buckling chase a chicken into a fence and then head butt them until I thought the end was near before being able to free the chicken. But what a crazy thing you saw! And don't doubt your rearing skills - this was a odd one.
I too, had a healthy case of chicken arrogance. I picked up a half dozen chicks in Mar as we need eggs this summer. someone said 'get extras, cuz you will lose some"..Nope, not me. They forced a spare on me tho, so I had 7 chicks. 2 months later, 7 little hens are feathered out and doing swell. I worked with Maremma #1 on chicken manners and he was doing quite well...I didn't count on Maremma #2. We are down to 5 chicks now!
I've lost another one....one of the reds...thankfully NOT Riccardo.....think it was a cat. We've eliminated the cat in question (was also one who raided rabbits hutches to pull bunnies through the wire) so hopefully that will be the last one......for a while at least. Definately no more smugness on my chicken rearing skills....
Sorry the chick numbers have gone down by 2..... Hopefully since you know what caused it, your others will thrive & go on to be egg layers for you :-)
Sorry to hear about your poor chickens, but good luck with all your remaining chickens! Now that you've gotten rid of the cat that might have been killing your stock you might have the same kind of luck you had to begin with, which is very, very good luck!
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