No Crowing Yet

...from Kerfluffle's offspring, at least not yet at 12 weeks --

this is an ugly picture of it...I don't have a better one yet, at the moment. The chick has huge feet, so I've been thinking it's a roo, but it's pretty skittish.

All Cooped Up

So glad the whole flock survived being cooped up in the heat for a whole week while we were away on vacation. They were pretty pissed off not being able to free-range, and I'm glad the little chicks didn't appear picked on. The day we got back they stayed out much longer than they usually do and enjoyed their freedom til sundown.

The Kinetic Chicken

Contestants in the 40th annual Kinetic Grand Championship raced their people-powered kinetic sculpture, “The Kinetic Chicken,” across the beach in Manila, Calif., Saturday. The championship is a three-day, 42-mile race over land, sand, mud and water from Arcata to Ferndale. (Kimberly White/Reuters)

Possible Roos

At least 2 of the April 16 chicks are possible roos...
The largest, whitest d'Uccle/Sultan chick has a much larger comb than the others

and the silkie/Sultan has a good-sized walnut comb. Since it's an only chick, I have no other to compare it to except its mom, whose comb took a longer time to get as big.

The others' combs look like our d'Uccle hens at that age --

Morning Wake-Up

I woke up Saturday morning to this segment on CNN about backyard chickens! Yeah, the TV in the bedroom was left on most of the night...I'm terrible.

Hawks & Pinwheels

2 more little chicks lost...at least 1 to a hawk, based on the flock's run for cover for a long while after it's immediate disappearance, and the other one, well... I have no idea. It just went missing. As a hawk deterrent, we've decided to mount 8 Slinky Spinwheels along the inner fence line on some of the posts, hoping the reflective spinning may make a hawk think twice about making a fast food pit stop in our yard. There appears to be agreement among some on the BYC Forum that reflective devices could work, so hence the experiment. We'll see what happens. Those smart hawks may not care after a while, but who knows? I like the spinning.

Wendy

Cinco de Mayo was Wendy's last day. She had stopped laying and was limping a little, but only in the last few days had she stopped eating and just hung out in the coop instead of free ranging with the others. We're still new to this chicken adventure, so we didn't think too much of it, expecting her to recover. I was thinking it could be bumblefoot, but her foot did not appear swollen. As a Rhode Island Red, she was our only 'production hen', laying a large brown egg about every day. None of the other chickens appear to have any problems.