Small Things That Make Me Happy

Kind of Sad

This afternoon the two Easter Egger/Barred Rock roosters went to a new home, where they will be have 20 hens, 1 rooster, and some other birds for company. I'm happy to have the flock down to a good number of roosters (only Red and Kernel) but I kind of wanted to cry as we drove away. Those two had been hatched by my broodys and would have been turning 3 years old this summer so even though they had never been named and I tried not to become attached to them, I'm still going to miss them.

Hidden Nest

Yesterday I headed out to the chicken coop with two gallons of water, some stale bread, and a rotting pumpkin for the compost pile. Dumped the pumpkin and went to the coop and started dumping waters and refilling them, filling feeders, and throwing bread to both flocks, when I noticed that one of my WL/EE hens wasn't with the rest of the flock. So I checked the nesting boxes thinking maybe she was laying, but she wasn't there. And then I had a thought, the big flock had given my mom trouble over the weekend by roosting in the old coop which I had opened up to return Kernel and the cochin's cage to its owner.

So I headed out to the old coop and peeked inside, to find her sitting in the second nesting box from the door. So I went in and picked her up to discover that she was sitting on 4 unfrozen green and and one unfrozen brown. So I kicked her off the nest, gathered the eggs, and attempted to shut the door. The problem with the old coops door even when it was used everyday, is that that it swells and dirt builds up around the bottom so it doesn't want to shut.  So after months of no real use it wanted nothing to do with closing, so it's currently open a couple inches until it's a little bit warmer.

One of the frozen eggs was past the point me even wanting to feed it to the animals the other three I let thaw and feed to the dog and cats. The pretty warm brown one shows that my CM is back in production and there was two green eggs layed in the coop when I kick out the WL/EE who then added her green egg to the mix. Meaning all the hens except for the bantam cochin are laying! The bantam cochin are also currently in lock down because the have figured out how to fly the fence, which hopefully I'll be able to improve shortly. But they (the cochins) probably won't be laying until spring. So happy valentines to me, 8 eggs out of 7 hens!

Worried

Tonight as I locked up the chickens I discovered that the smaller of the two EE/BR roosters is missing. He was here this morning, so either he roosted in a tree and I just missed seeing him or something got him. Hopefully he shows up in the morning.

The Buff Cochin....

...is going to give me a heart attack! The other day I went out to feed the flock some over ripe bananas and discovered that the little buff cochin was out running around outside the cochins little fenced area. Luckily I only had to left the fence up and she ran back in with a little bit of herding. So I fixed the fence, which was a little too far off the ground. Then yesterday I had let all the birds out and started to head back to the house, when I heard a noise behind me. I spun around to see the buff cochin standing next to the pen, which she must have flown out of . I manged to grab her before she could get any where and put her back in.

The reason this worries me so much is A: the cochins aren't the smartest and I wouldn't trust them to run from a predator B: they could be harmed by the big hens who have no problem trying to scare them through the fence and C: the roosters, who could possibly harm them while trying to breed with them. So I'm going to have to work on their fencing, either by raising it (possibly tearing apart the run on the old coop) or put a top on the run or what ever else I can think of.