hawk sitings

a couple of month's ago a hawk flew into our, not so urban after all, backyard. it scoped out our back yard. it came back two weeks later and our little flock were terrified. this weekend they had another scare but i was unable to see what had scared them. it's winter and food is normally scarce for wild animals and my hens are the target. i've started leaving my two dogs outside with the girls in the morning to keep the hawk's out. gives me peace of mind and not having any disasters. there have been lots of posts of chickens being lost to coyotes, foxes, bob cats, and hawk attacks. with hope i can avoid that in my back yard.

the girls turn 1!

Last year on October 28, 2010 we had our five girls (didn't know then that we had one boy, rooster, in the flock) delivered. On October 28, 2011 our little flock turned one. We celebrated by giving the "hens" corn on the cob, watermelon, and chicken treats galore. happy birthday to you girls!!!

it's a sad, sad day

well, the day has come. when we decided to keep our rooster, Daddy, we knew that we could get some complaints from the neighbors. its only been eight months since we discovered he was a rooster and started crowing. we mutually decided that if we ever got any complaints from our neighbors that we would find him a home. that day has come (sigh). i can't help but feel sad. he's the only rooster i've ever had and he's been a lot of fun to watch grow. he's super friendly, follows you around when outside, greets us when we come home for lunch and work, watches us through out back door while we cook and eat along side our two dogs, crows outside of our bedroom window on a chair, jumps on my shoes just to stand there and lastly gets along with our dogs! he's a good little rooster dog. we've also gotten to see the traditional "rooster" traits that are quite gallant. if he finds any tasty snacks he squabbles and the girls come running, if we throw out treats he makes sure the girls eat first, if there's danger (normally that's just our sprinklers or a stray cat) he cackles and alerts the girls, he also cackles louder than the girls when they announce that they've laid their egg for the day (seriously, he didn't do any work but cackles alongside the girls proud egg laying accomplishments), and if the girls squawk from us picking them up he cackles and runs towards their squawking to protect them. he's done his job well and it's sad to see him go. i've told kevin to take him immediately to prolong my huge attachment issues to animals. he's going to a good home and will have more hens to watch over and the owner has promise that Daddy will not be a bird that you eat, he's a pet you know. he'll do a great job. silly really, he's just a chicken. i wish there was a way to train him not to crow but that will never happen. no more roosters for us from here on out while we live in the city. good bye Daddy, my dear pet rooster dog.

snack time

pico de gallo and chips, mongolian beef and fried rice with an extra egg, apple juice, and diary of a whimpy kid -- what a great afternoon!

'where's waldo', er, daddy?

had a small scare from our little rooster, daddy, last week. i noticed that his left wattle was a bit swollen. i took a look at it and assumed maybe he had been bitten by a spider or some other creepy crawler. the next morning when letting the girls and daddy out i took another look to see if it had gotten any better, or worse for that matter, and it had. his left wattle felt a bit bigger and his little adam's apple was very swollen. it wasn't swollen the day before. since it had in fact gotten worse i got on the internet and began researching what this could mean. there is so much information out there. how am i supposed to know what is related to what i'm looking for and true? i'm sure the folks asking questions similar to mine were concerned about their rooster's but the amount of responses made it impossible to narrow it down. there were responses that lead to contiguous diseases and to just kill the dang bird, cholera was another, and frost bite. 

i live in the reno area and there aren't very many avian vets out here. my vet office that i take my other animals (chico, daisy and raphael) happened to have a bird vet but he was out for the fourth of july weekend on vacation. we contacted another vet office out here and luckily someone was willing to let me bring daddy in for a check up. it was an experience. we sat in the waiting room for 45 minutes before we were led to a room. one of the vet assistants got me some water and found a spritzer because by this point he had his wings spread from his body, panting, all while in a small cat carrier laying down (this carrier is perfect for the girls but not the rooster; investing in a carrier for him may be wise). the staff that worked here had never had a rooster come in their offices so everyone was very curious when he began crowing. to my amazement he only crowed five times!

the vet took a look at his wattle with a small flashlight and determined that he had been bitten by a cat! i've read that rooster's can be fearless while protecting their hens so he must've gotten in to a beak fight with a stray cat. for sure, daddy had little black scars on his left wattle proving the cat bite. the vet put him on some antibiotics because he was less worried about his wattle and more worried about his adam's apple. if his adam's apple was to get more swollen then he wouldn't be able to breath causing him to stop eating, starve and eventually die. for seven days we have been giving daddy his antibiotics and both his wattle and adam's apple have gone down. not as serious as some of responses i found online or some of the stories the vet told me of the injured chickens he's seen. in the end i felt better having taken him to a vet and avoiding any losses.

he's all better now- crowing more loudly, bossing the girls around, and chillin' outside our back door. 

eggs, eggs, lots of eggs

its been about two months since the girls have started laying eggs. i've just been watching them be chickens. our girls are as healthy as they can be and have gotten bigger. i get three brown eggs and one of the girls (pretty sure it's duck) is giving us speckled pink eggs. not all at once we almost always get three eggs a day with an inconsistent four. their shells are nice and hard meaning that they are getting their calcium because of the oysters shells they eat once a month. it's also good for making their bones strong. from what the clerk at our feed store told us they will know how much to eat. amazing really.


we've started giving them more treats from the usual scratch, tortillas and blueberries. they enjoy watermelon, strawberry leaves, the inside of a cucumbers, rice and lettuce leaves. our neighborhood is very safe and we are lucky that they can spend most of the day wandering the back yard without supervision. i have been doing a lot of yard work so they follow me curiously and leaf through my piles for worms and bugs. my girls are pretty much grass eaters.

one wet chicken. 

they only have one bad habit and that's that we let them sleep on top of their coop. which means more cleaning. there will be a super cleaning next month before the next six month's super cleaning. the weather has been hot here and i've notice two of the girls walking around with their wings spread away from their bodies. i'll have to look into that. i've made two shade spots for them to access, under a couple of trees and underneath of their coop in their pen. it was a great idea to raise that coop giving them access to underneath. it's where they spend most of their time when bathing in the dirt.

they discovered the other side

mimi hopped over our five maybe six foot fence this afternoon. i heard daddy (the rooster) cackling and squawking away loudly. at first i thought maybe she was laying an egg but when i went to look in the coop she wasn't there. i could hear her little chicken feet fussing with some leaves on the other side of the fence and there she was in our drive way! unfortunately, when one does something the other girls follow suit. yep, our girls are one of the best examples of the saying "monkey see, monkey do". kevin was not pleased and worried when i told him what happened. after some discussion we agreed that we had to clip their feathers. all of them. now they are just little hoppers. after clipping their feathers i couldn't help but wonder how in the world had mimi cleared that fence! we will never know....