Weekly Country Shoot Out

Welcome to the Weekly Country Shoot Out!

If you have farm and chicken-related photos you would like to share on the Natural Chicken Keeping blog, please email them to me at: shabbychicken@hotmail.com

Photo courtesy of Kendra of Ramblin H Acres

Oh hai!

Photo courtesy of Justine Lewis of Les Farms

Photo courtesy of countrygirl74

Photo courtesy of Kassaundra Tamplen

Photo courtesy of Justine Lewis of Les Farms

Photo courtesy of countrygirl74

May your week be filled with fresh country air and chickens!

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From Brooder to Flock Member - Integrating Chicks Into The Flock

How do you integrate your new chicks into your existing flock? Here’s what a few of us had to say on the subject:

Justine of Les Farms Says:

I integrated by having a run with little holes along the bottom just for the babies. They could get in and out, and the older birds could not get in (other than the Silkies - which was fine by me). 

It wasn't pretty, but it worked.. it worked really well.

This is on the outside. Chicks came through the holes and free ranged early.

Vicki Says:

My situation is different than most. I usually have broody's raising chicks so the flock is used to seeing chicks running around. I do not confine in a sense that most do.

Yes - I also brood chicks in a brooder.

When it is time to go outdoors… they go with the big birds.

They can get out of the building and they can get out of the fencing, but larger birds can't get in.

Then they graduate to another building when the next group comes.

They have access to the whole yard, yet can't free range yet. You have to be a laying adult and have the mental capacity to avoid predators.

The doors are kept open and all ages co-mingle all day long. I have about 20 food stations and 4 watering stations. My chicken yard looks horrible and messy, but it works for me. The adults are gone for most of the day eating out in the pastures, and the only ones inside the fencing are juveniles and babies. They all run through the 1/4 acre yard surrounded by a 7 foot high fence. I have 3 smaller fenced in side area's just in case I need to confine. We are presently working on two more. Next year I will have to confine more breeds to collect eggs and ship chicks. I added BCM to the Cuckoo. I also added the two varieties of Wyandottes.

Leigh Says:

While I prefer to have broody hens hatch and raise my chicks, it simply isn’t always possible. Hens don’t tend to go broody on command, and when they do go broody, they often all go broody at once. 

I hatch chicks throughout the season, and when I don’t have a broody, I have to use a brooder (mine is a large Rubbermaid container). When it is time for the chicks to start venturing outdoors, I set up my chick play yard. 

As the mother of 3 human children, I happened to keep 2 collapsible plastic outdoor playpens. They snap together to make one large yard which I set up under a big pine tree in the middle of the chicken yard. It makes the perfect cover to hide the chicks from aerial predators, and to deter my older flock members from jumping in to join the chicks.

 

This way my chicks can see and safely “meet” the older chickens though the plastic panels.

When I feel the chicks are old enough to fend for themselves (or run away fast enough) I let them loose as the flock free ranges. This can be a tough time because the older chickens will peck the little ones. Interestingly, I find it is most often the lowest chickens in the pecking order that are the worst about picking on the babies. I think it’s because finally these older chickens feel they aren’t on the bottom any more, and they want to keep those babies lower than they are on the pecking order.

Regardless of whether a chick is raised under a broody or in a brooder, they all have to go through a period of time where they establish themselves within the flock. This is the hardest time for us as humans to watch. Chickens are bullies - - but if we constantly intercede, the chicks will never become part of the flock. These are the times we have to stand back, plug our ears and not watch for a bit and let nature handle it.

During this intermediate phase, I allow all the chickens to free range together, but I keep the chicks in a large parrot cage inside the coop at night. I don’t like confining the flock in a small space together when there is still discourse. After a few weeks in separate digs (where they can all still see each other), the growing chicks are usually ready to perch with the older ones. In fact as I write this, two of my 9-week-old Swedish Flower Hen chicks are perching right up with the older flock members in the coop. 

So tell us - how do you integrate your chicks into the flock?

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Weekly Country Shoot-Out

When the weather is nice, I try to take a lot of photos so I'll have plenty of illustrations for the blog. Of course this usually means I end up with a lot of extra photos. The Weekly Country Shoot-Out will be a regular installment on the blog which has no other purpose than to share fun photos... and you are invited to share yours too! 

If you have farm and chicken-related photos you would like to share on the Natural Chicken Keeping blog, please email them to me at: shabbychicken@hotmail.com

 

 

 "Bug-Hunter" Photos courtesy of Justine Lewis of Les Farmes

May your week be filled with fresh country air and chickens!

How Do Chickens "Do It?" Chicken Sex Explained

Well this wasn’t the post I had planned on doing today, but when I trotted outside with my camera to capture some artistic chicken shots on this glorious day, I was treated to a real lens full. Compliments of my Swedish Flower Hen rooster (yes – that is an oxymoron, but the capitalized part is the actual breed name) and one of his Swedish Flower Hen… hens, I found myself with the material for an educational course on the birds and the bees… with an emphases on the birds.

You know? This may seem in rather poor taste to post all of this, but if you are reading this blog, chances are you live on a farm or farmette, or at very least you have or want chickens. I think those of us who are farmers or farmers at heart realize that animals aren’t exactly shy about what (or who) they do or where/when they do it.

(Photo source unknown, but clearly brilliant!)

 So please consider this a warning. If you are easily offended or embarrassed, 

Stop Reading NOW!

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If you are still reading, I will assume that you will not be offended or call me out for posting chicken porn on this blog. Further, I will assume you are either curious about how eggs get fertilized, or you simply can't live without knowing how I am going to approach this delicate subject in such a public manner.

As the mother of 3 children, it would be all to easy to start out with, "When a daddy chicken loves a mommy chicken very, very much..." 

But you know? We're all grownups here. These are chickens, not humans, so let's keep it real. 

It all begins with a hormonally-charged rooster looking for all the world as if he is using Joey's line from the sitcom Friends... "How you doin'?"

Then the Fabio side of Mr. Roo (his name is Gunnar) kicks in for the foreplay. If he could speak, I think it might sound something like: "Hello very fine lady. Do you see the lovely and flamboyant dance that I do just for you. I have lowered my shockingly well-formed wing so as to allow you to see my beautiful feathers. You are impressed, no?"

"Are you not paying attention to my amorous advances, sexy lady? Do you not think me divine?"

"Shall I share my awesomeness with you?"

And here, you can practically hear Astrid's exclamation of "Ooofff" as Gunnar takes a sudden and rather clumsy leap onto her back and balances with one foot on either of her shoulders.

The act that follows takes the balance and skill of Tom Cruise's character in Mission Impossible as he navigates some ridiculously unrealistic obstacle course of deadly laser beams that we all know were electronically added in during editing. (As an aside, I initially spelled "obstacle" wrong and my spell check wanted to change it to "obstetrical." Hmmm... very insightful for my little HAL 9000.)

"Watch as Gunnar delicately navigates this obstetrical course..."

Sometimes Gunnar uses his wings much like a tightrope walker uses a balance pole. Hey - it takes skill to stand on someone's shoulders while having "relations" with them... not that I would know from experience.. but... ahem - moving right along...

The above photo that captured the actual 2 seconds where the "home run" happened.

Excerpt from the post Chickens, Eggs, Fertilization, Reproduction and Other Insider Information:

"When a rooster mates with a hen, he mounts her and, standing on her back, lowers his cloaca (vent) and the hen inverts her own cloaca to meet with his. There is no penetration, but the sperm packet released by the male is taken into the hen's cloaca or vent. From there the sperm makes its way to the infundibulum where it awaits the release of an ovum. Sperm can live in the infundibulum for more than 2 weeks."

Yeah - about 2 seconds is all the splendor in the grass that hen can expect.

Chicken folks will call this part "head-skating", "shoulder-surfing" or just "mating."

(And I call this postition, "The Vulture" he whispered softly into her ear as he fell off her back.)

That's right... shake it off!

A quick, post-coital snuggle...

"Quick! Act like nothing happened! Here comes one of my other wives!"

"I'll call you... "

And then comes the egg - though it can take a few days for eggs to be fertile after the first mating of a hen and roo. Also, eggs can be fertile for up to 3 weeks following the last 2-second romantic encounter between birds.

Even hens without roosters in the yard can go broody, but of course only fertile eggs will hatch.

"Look at me when I'm screaming at you, Mr.! First I push about a dozen objects larger then my own head out of my cloaca, and then I have to SIT here for 21 days! Did you HEAR that? Twenty-one days... while you... what? While you're off doing the wing-dance for that hussy, Ginger!"

And then come chicks!

And that, my friends, is where baby chickens come from!


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