Is Ginger a Roo, coop maintenance, and the weekly updates

So a few updates for this week...

Biggest news is that we are starting to question Ginger's sexuality.  I've been lurking around on BYC (Backyard Chickens, a forum for poultry-lovers for those of you not in the know), and some of the more experienced Easter Egger parents have mentioned that Ginger's coloring is very roo-like.  Apparently the neat mottled color she has is mostly seen in young roosters, not young hens.  Multiple picture postings back and forth and the jury is still out.  We may have to wait until she starts to crow or until she squats (a sign she is getting ready to lay)/actually lays an egg.

On that note, the updated pics for this week:

Basil.  She definitely has a single comb; I had it confirmed.

Ginger.  See the reddish-brown on the wings and back?  This is what is causing the gender confusion.

Curry.  Barely got her to sit still for the picture.

Paprika.  You can't really tell the difference between her and Curry in this picture, but the top of her head is much darker.

Daffy.  Notice the green sheen on the wings?  The feathers on the top of his/her head are coming in that way as well.

And Aflac, who was much more interested in peas and carrots than getting a good shot.  Weight gain has slowed a bit - he's about 5.5 pounds this week.

Now Aflac and Daffy might look cute, but if anyone is reading this blog let me tell you (or maybe retell you):  DUCKLINGS ARE MESSY!  Cleaning the coop takes about 30 minutes each morning.  Currently we have the original coop I posted about, plus a dog crate attached at one of the doorways.  I am still lining the house portion with newspaper, which needs changing about every other day.  The bottom half of the coop gets scooped/raked daily, with any soggy or soiled shaving removed and added to the compost barrel.  In the dog crate we have the food and water, so the bottom plastic tray has to get hosed down daily and the water pitcher cleaned daily.  Tonight we are trying something new - since the ducklings make such a huge mess with the water, we moved it on top of a screen above a shallow Rubbermaid tote.  The idea that any water that gets splashed out will run down into the tote instead of flooding the dog crate and the coop.  So far so good - if it seems like it is working I will add pictures of the setup next week.

Expanding the coop

So we decided that the chickens needed more floor space, so today we expanded the coop.  To do so we ended up purchasing a larger crate for Misun (our dog) and moving his old crate out next to the coop.  By lining but the doors we were able to add on additional floor space to the coop.  The food and water containers will be in the new space, with the hope that the bare floor will keep it cleaner in there and that with the smaller doorway it will be harder for them to track shavings into the food.  We then filled out the rest of the pen with shavings to give them more roaming space.

Everyone is growing well.  Not sure if there is much of a change from last week, but it is worth a peek:

Ginger.  I tried to get a back view for someone who had commented on her coloring:

Basil, who I still think is the prettiest of the bunch:

Curry, who apparently still thinks she is a hawk.  She won't sit still at all if I set her on the ground (learned that the hard way), but she will perch momentarily on your hand:

 Paprika.  The color difference between her and Curry is more prominent now:

Daffy.  Daffy still hates to be held and clawed me up pretty good earlier this week.  I attempted pics out of the coop but he tried to run every time I took my hand off of him.  You can't really see it in the picture, but some of the feathers on his back have a green sheen to them in the light:

Aflac.  He was more interested in exploring than in taking a picture.  He will allow you to hold him if you keep him cradled, though he will shout in your ear the entire time:

 

And the family dog, Misun.  He was not at all pleased with all the attention the birds were getting.

Peas are like duck crack

So another week has gone by and life in the coop is good.  After about 2 days everyone figured out the ramp going in and out of the coop - Curry of course was the first one and she crowed out her delight immediately.  Now they all have figured it out, and depending on when you go out and check on them you can find them in various places throughout the coop.  Generally speaking the ducks tend to stick together, but the chickens seem to share no such loyalty.

And now for this weeks pictures:

Basil.  She was the only one that would sit still for pictures - the others tried to escape.  While she doesn't love being handled she will endure it.  She also seems to make the least fuss in the coop, and can be regularly found hanging out with the ducks.

Ginger.  I wish I knew how to explain the color she is turning.  It looks for all the world like she took a tumble in the soot bin.  She has a grayish sheen to her feathers that Curry and Paprika do not, though her chest seems to be coming in a peachy color.  For a couple of days it looked for all the world like someone had pooped on top of her head, as some lighter feathers were just peaking through her cinnamon fluff.

Curry.  She never sits still, so of course was not that interested in taking pictures.  I think she is turning into the boss hen and will take charge of the situation.  Where she leads, the others follow.

Paprika, or as my daughter Jasmine called her, the screaming one.  Of the chickens she is the least likely to allow you to hold her, and she screams at the top of her voice whenever you try to take her out.  In looks she remains very similar to Curry, though not quite as red.

 Daffy.  Daffy is getting harder to hold down the bigger he gets.  He screams as soon as you think about touching him, though if you leave him on the ground he will do anything for a pea.  He is not nearly as curious as Aflac is, as you might be able to tell by the second picture.  Can you also tell how much bigger Aflac is now than Daffy?

Aflac is getting huge.  Using the same method as last week we have him more than double in size - about 3.4 pounds this week.  He will allow you to hold him, though he talks your ear off the entire time.  He also loves peas.

Which brings me to the comment:  peas are like duck crack.  Seriously.  I ran across a website that listed out duck treats and how well their ducks liked them, and peas were mentioned to be well-liked.  Having some left after dinner this week I had to try it of course.  Both Aflac and Daffy go crazy for these things!  Have you ever been mobbed by ducks at the park looking for bread?  (Which you shouldn't do by the way, it is terribly bad for them.)  It was like that times 10.

Moving to the new coop

Another week has gone by and the babies are growing up so quickly!  The project this weekend was to get everyone moved out to the new garage coop.  So nice to have my office space back and to not have the living room smell like pine shavings!  Actually, the chickens themselves weren't too bad, but the ducks are horribly messy.  Plus at the rate they are growing they really needed more space than our over-sized tub could offer.

The girls are in a really funny looking stage right now - they are about halfway covered in regular feathers and halfway covered in baby fluff.  Very much some ugly "ducklings" here!  It is so interesting to see the new feathers coming in and to watch the color transformation.  Hard to believe that they are the same chipmunky little creatures we brought home three weeks ago.

I am starting to wonder if Ginger is a day or two younger than the other chicks.  She is still one of the most adventurous ones - all this week she followed Curry around on her escapades to escape from the tub.  She is taking the longest to get the feathers in.  So far she seems like she is going to be a dusty-brown color:

 

Don't tell anyone, but I think Basil is going to be my favorite.  She definitely stands out from the rest of the group with her black and white coloring.  More black on the top and cute little spots coming in on her chest feathers.  She is also the calmest of the four and the least likely to try and escape:

Paprika is also relatively calm, not likely to explore but the first to try and hop out of the tub when I am in there messing around with feed, water, and litter changes.  She and Curry appear to have similar feather colors coming in, though she is slightly darker overall:

Curry remains the bad girl of the bunch, constantly testing the boundaries and finding any weak spots in the containment system.  So far her feathers are similar to Paprika's, though her feathers have a bit more red to them:

All of the chicks appear to have fully functioning wings now, and are able to fly up and out short distances.  Of course that leads the hubby to question weather we are raising chickens or baby hawks, especially when they all get going with their squawking.

Aflac is turning into quite the doll baby.  He (yes, I'm still calling the ducks "he" though I still have no clue on the gender) will calm down and allow you to hold him pretty quickly, though he talks right in your ear the entire time.  He's also a big boy - we weighed him yesterday doing the mommy weighs herself with and without duckling method and he's approximately 1.6 pounds.  In contrast, Daffy is only 1.2 pounds.  It is hard to tell in the picture, but his yellow baby fluff is slowly giving way to white feathers:

Daffy remains incredibly skittish, screaming and fighting any time you pick him up.  I will have to do some more research on Swedish Blues to find out if this is a breed thing or simply an issue of needing more socializing.  Still more social than the chickens from a distance - the ducks overall seem to have more curiosity and awareness of our comings and goings than the chicks do.  Daffy has a softer appearance than Aflac still and I haven't noticed the adult feathers coming in yet (though the color difference may have something to do with that):

  

And now to show you the new coop.  After much deliberation we decided on a pre-fabricated one that we picked up at the farm and feed store.  It ended up being cheaper than buying all of the lumber, fencing, and tools that we would have needed to craft our own.  Plus once our city gets to the point where we can openly own poultry we can easily transfer it outside.

The design is fairly simple - coop with attached nesting box with a ramp down into a run.  We did not attach the roof (since the birds are inside we do not need to worry about it blowing off or predators coming in) so we suspended a bar to allow us to hang the heat lamps - one inside the coop for now and another brighter one to illuminate the run.  We also changed out the garage lights for daylight bulbs to increase the brightness.

Another view from the end:

We did buy larger food and water dishes as they are eating and drinking a lot more than when we first brought them home.  There was a natural division of the run, so I have the food and water containers sitting on newspaper on the one side.  My hope is that we won't end up with water dish filled with pine shavings like we did in the tub, and the newspaper will be easy to change out as it gets dirty.  The other side has the pine shavings, giving the birds something to scratch around in and also that will absorb stool and make great compost for the garden.  The coop is lightweight enough that we can easily move it to one side or tilt it up so that we can sweep the litter out when it comes time to do a complete change.

View inside the coop so that you can see the nesting boxes.  We will eventually get some hay to put in those, but it is way cheaper to buy it in the 80 pound bale (about 3 dollars more than the 6 pound bag they sell in the store) and it wouldn't fit in our van with the kids.  So that will be a separate trip this summer when we get closer to the time where we will start seeing eggs.

There are two roosts the coop.  We have a heat lamp in there for now to keep them warm until the weather breaks for good - we will have to see how to adjust that as they grow so no one bonks their head.  Under the roosts is a removable tray that I also lined with newspaper for easy clean-up.

The girls aren't too sure yet about the new home.  When I first put them in they all huddled in the corner like you see here.  Once I put the ducks in they started to relax (picking up on some of the curiosity from them?) and scratched around.  So far I know they know how to go down the ramp, though no one seems to have ventured back up it yet.

I will keep you posted as to how everyone settles in!  We saved the larger tub to make into a bathing tub for the ducks - the plan is that until the pond is built we will put them in there once a day to splash around.

One Week

So, if anyone is actually reading this then they will have seen the pictures I put up a couple of days ago.  I wanted to have some to share - now I am going to go back and give everyone an update on how our first week went.

This is Ginger, she has settled down with the other girls now and isn't as much of an outcast.  Poor thing was nearly drowned by one of the duckies this morning (heard an awful squawk and came in to find her soaking wet and limping), so we moved the ducks into their own temporary enclosure.

 

This is Basil.  She has the most distinctive feathering coming in - it almost looks like she is wearing leopard print shoulder pads right now.  She is currently the calmest of the girls and the easiest to handle.

This is Paprika.  I think she has the most tail feathers of the group, but personality-wise she doesn't have anything that particularly stands out.

And Curry, who is just a little pistol.  She is constantly looking for ways to escape, is nearly impossible to catch, and I think she can already fly.  She makes changing the pen very interesting to say the least.  This past week she has gotten out of the box 3 times and been found wandering around the spare bedroom.

Daffy - the ducklings have gotten HUGE.  Daffy is the shyer of the two - will run away when you get close.  Constantly pecks at my hand and bites at my wedding ring when I am trying to do things in the pen.

Aflac has grown even more than Daffy I think.  Definitely the noisiest one of the bunch.  He is not at all happy about being separated from the chicks.  He is the friendliest out of all the birds, being the first to come up for belly rubs (which I've read is a Pekin thing?).

It's looking like this will be the last week in the house.  The weather is finally starting to break and we were able to find a good deal on a pre-fab coop at the feed store.  Weather permitting we will clear out the garage next weekend and set it all up.  Which cannot come soon enough!  The ducklings are horribly messy - I have had to do complete litter changes twice a day the past three days because they kept tipping the water bottle over!

Meet the Flock

Part of the goal of the blog is to document the (rapid) growth of the babies as they mature from cute balls of fluff to mature egg-layers.  We can then also share our failures and successes for anyone else who is looking to raise "house chickens" and wants some advice. This is what we brought home the first night:

If you can tell from the grainy, Instagram-enhanced, cell phone picture that is 4 chicks and 2 ducklings.  We had pre-ordered 4 Easter Eggers (all female).  Medium-sized, can handle confinement and our local temperatures, pretty docile, and lay anything from brown to green to blue eggs.  The ducks were more of an impulse buy.  The conversation went something like this:
     Hubby:  I want a duck.
     Me:  A duck?!
     Hubby:  Yes.
     Me:  You realize you will have to build a pond for them?
     Hubby:  I always wanted a pond.
     Me:  Can you even have just one duck?
     Hubby shrugs.
     Me (to salesman):  Can you have just one duck?
     Salesman:  Well, generally they do better in flocks.  They might be okay if you plan on keeping it with the chickens, but if not you are going to want to get a couple.
     Me (to hubby):  We'd probably better get two then, just in case.  You're sure you want a duck?
     Hubby (to salesman):  Give us two ducks.

So that's how we came home with two ducks.  Now Hubby will probably say that it was I who wanted the ducks in the first place...but really, who is going to put up much of a fight over such cute fluffy things?  After all, we already are halfway crazy planning on chickens in the backyard, what's a few more poultry?  And I did say that if we were going to get them then I wanted one of the black and yellow ones because they looked like penguins (and as you may or may not know I have always thought that it would be awesome to have a penguin as a pet).

Now, individually:

This is Daffy.  See how he looks like a penguin?  And no, I don't know if "he" is a "he" or a "she" - I've just been calling the ducks "he" and the chicks (which were sexed) "she".  Daffy is quieter and shyer than the other duckling.  I think he is a Swedish Blue (a black one, the blue does not breed true) but time will tell for sure.

This is Aflac.  We think that he might be a Pekin, though again we will have to wait until he is grown to know for sure.  Nosier and bolder than Daffy, he is also less likely to sit calmly in your hands once you pick him up.  Supposedly Pekins make excellent pets though, and will learn their names and some basic commands.

This is Ginger.  She is the only one of the girls to not have the chipmunk-like stripe down her back.  At first she seemed to be a bit of an outcast with the group, but everyone seems to be getting along now.  She also is the calmest of the 4 so far.

This is Paprika.  Since Hubby chose Ginger's name I said we should stick with the spice theme.  The lighter parts of her chipmunk-like stripe are more tan than the other two girls.

This is Curry.  She has the most yellow on her chest.  She is also the troublemaker of the bunch.  This morning she hopped right out of the smaller box I had moved the flock in to while I changed out the wood chips in their primary home.  She will also struggle the most when you try to hold her.

And lastly, this is Basil.  She has more brown on her chest than curry, though their faces look similar.  She also has the small black spot in front of her left eye.

That's it for the starting pics - the descriptions are sure to change as they grow and get adult feathers and as their personalities develop more.

So Why Chickens?

Given the fact that we live in a pretty urban area, where yards are smaller, homes are closer together, and there are two grocery stores within walking distance (not counting places like Target and Walgreens were you can pick up basics like milk), people tend to look at you a little strangely when you mention that you want to raise chickens.  So here is some of the background information.

• Cost - it doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that food prices are on the rise.  With a growing family and a growing food bill, it only makes sense to produce what we can on our own instead of buying it at the store.  Granted, it will take us a while to recoup our initial investment, but the birds will help in other ways as well - hunting insects, providing fertilizer, and acting as a teaching tool for our kids.
• Health/Taste - this is a two-for-one.  If you have never had a home-raised egg, try it.  The differences between it and what you are getting in the grocery store are visible.  Plus we will know exactly what our chickens are eating, how they are being treated, and so forth.
• Self-Reliance - we live in uncertain times.  And while we haven't fully embraced say, a "prepper" lifestyle, it still makes sense to be prepared.  We lost power for 4 days with Hurricane Sandy.  We regularly get lake effect snow in the winter.  You never know when a "Walking Dead" scenario might happen, a solar flare will fry electronics, or the economy will collapse.  Regardless of the scenario, knowing that we have a back-up plan, no matter how small at this point, offers some comfort.
• Fun - this is the pet factor.  We are considering the chickens (and hopefully the ducks should they prove to be girls) to be "pets with benefits."  Much as we love Misun, aside from being a pretty decent watchdog and a fun companion, doesn't provide much for the household.  Chickens (and ducks) have their own personalities and will be just as much a companion animal as any other pet bird - plus we will be able to enjoy breakfast on their behalf.