Our newest chicken, Candace.

On Sept 24th, we brought home out brand new gal, Candace! She's a 7mth old Ameraucana (Easter Egger if you prefer), and she has the most gorgeous coloring. And yes she's named after the sister on the TV show Phineas and Ferb!

Candace, once she's laying, will hopefully lay gorgeous light blue eggs for us to collect from the new coop...yes new coop. I'm about to construct a new one soon! The one we have is really just not the perfect solution for our very small flock that free range almost all day long in our backyard. And with us renting we want to make sure when it's time for us to leave, we don't leave behind any areas where the grass has been killed off because of our doing.

Anyhoo, back to our precious new gal!

She's getting a little more tame and used to rambunctious children, and so JBug is able to catch her occasionally on his own. She's started returning to her little temporary coop in the evening as it gets dark, so we don't even need to round her back up again!

However she's not 100% okay with the attention she receives just yet. Here she is pushing off his hands and flying off to freedom (in the yard of course). Sometimes she can be seen standing on his hands/ lap when Missy is nowhere around! Doesn't she look huge in this photo?! She's definitely bigger than the bantams, but smaller than our Marans, who is really a hefty girl.

So far the our three gals will tolerate her, so long as she doesn't:

• eat food they may consider eating, either now or at some point in the future,
• drink from their waterer,
• be in the spot they might want to be in,
• be too close to them.

So all in all, integration into the mini-flock going as expected but not quite as well as I hoped, lol!

Oddly enough it's our tiniest chicken that is actually the meannie of the bunch. Sadly the other two are following her lead, but it really surprised me that Meep is the one to go and seek a fight with Candace! I would have imagined Candace would look at her and squawk " I can eat you for breakfast you puny little thing." and they'd both know she was bigger and stronger and not work fighting with! Boy was I wrong! 

It's a good thing Candace is FAST and used to roaming quite freely, as she can definitely outrun them.

Hopefully if we keep them separate at night and free ranging together every day they will slowly come to accept her into their flock. If not, the new coop may end up being a more like two townhouses!

Little Man loves to sit and watch the chickens when they're in their coop. He can't pedal so JBug pushes him around the yard on Missy's bike and then he gets parked in front of the coop. And he just sits there watching them for ages and ages. When he's done and ready to move on he shouts for his big brother to move him!

And then there were three...

As you know, we received our 4 sweet backyard chicks in the mail during August 2012. We love them dearly and they're so much fun to be around!

However, this past week we had to say goodbye to one of darling gals, Izzy.  Izzy was our slightly skittish, but so adorable, Black Australorp. We don't know what happened or why. All that we know is it must have been sudden She was fine in the morning, layed us an egg (still in our fridge), and she was gone by late afternoon.

Rest in Peace darling Izzy, you will be missed.

Thankfully Buttercup, Millie, and Meep are all still looking very healthy and are still laying well for us, despite the broody fever that's trying to spread. :)

Handmade 52: Item #9 Chicken Coop!

It is DONE!!!
Phew! It took me over 3 months and far more cash than planned to build this coop. Oops.

Coop shown with flaps open.
The brown you see inside near the center is a tall cardboard box I used to section off some of the coop, so that the little chicks would be in a smaller area inside the coop to start with. This came in handy when Buttercup needed to be separated from the rest during the "Broken Beak" episode. o_O
More on that and her recovery soon.

Note to self : Use a plan (bought or free) that comes with a cut list and step by step instructions, and remember that you don't have the spare time to make elaborate things during nap times - less is more!

Chicken Coop and Run

• Our coop is taller than my husband! 
• It consists of a 6ft x 3ft coop on top, and a 6ft x 4ft run below. 
• There is a 2 section ladder for them to go up to the coop and down to the run. They enter / exit the coop via a pop-door in the floor. 
• I used hardware cloth over the windows and run sides. We do NOT want to take the risk of anything hurting or taking off with our little ladies, so I tried to make the coop and run as secure as possible. But I also made as many doors and windows as possible. It gets VERY hot here in Texas, and the last thing I wanted was for our chickens to overheat and die....and then I'd have to tell the kids what happened. Nope, not our kind of fun. So lots of windows to open for airflow, while still keeping them secure, and lots of doors so that I can easily clean it out, reach food and water, catch chicks that need medical attention, allow the kids to feed treats without them escaping, and so on.
• Thankfully I thought ahead and put together the whole thing with good quality screws, because the only way I see us being able to move it / sell it off if we move....is in pieces or at least in sections. It is huge, heavy, and strong enough to hold an adult or several kids in the top section without it even moving. I'm pretty proud of it's strength and security features! ;)

(I'll do a separate post with more photos of the building process, inside details etc.)

Our girls are:
Buttercup (Blue Splash Marans - standard size chicken)
Izzy (Black Australorp - standard size chicken)
- named after Isabella on the TV show Phineas and Ferb
Millie (Welsummer - bantam chicken)
and
Meep (Black Frizzle Cochin - bantam chicken)
- named after the cute alien character in Phineas and Ferb.

I'll do a separate post showing off our beauties!
Okay, okay, one sneak peek:

They're MUCH bigger these days!

Where did we get our chickens?
After much deliberation, lots of emails back and forth between myself and several people, I made the executive decision to order our girls from My Pet Chicken.

Why?
For so many reasons. The main ones being:

1. We had to be sure we received girls. Our landlord sweetly said yes to our out-of-the-blue request for chickens in this suburban neighbourhood, but we promised them no roosters would ever call our coop home. Unlike most places, MPC sexes their bantams. Yes, there is always a small chance they will get it wrong, but the chances are far lower than ordering through the feed store, or on Craigslist, and simply taking our chances with what sexes we receive for our bantams.
2. We could get a variety of breeds without having to reach a minimum of 15+ chickens. We are allowed no more than 4 and to be honest, that's plenty for us. For our zipcode, the minimum order is 5 when you order bantams and standards in one order. Thankfully I know a sweet lady nearby that would add to her flock so that we would meet the minimum. Yay!

This is by far the biggest handmade item that I will tackle this year (thankfully). And while it's certainly not perfect, especially up close, it is fully functional and I'll admit I'm pretty impressed that I did the majority of it without help! Though the help I did receive from my husband was invaluable. I could never have finished certain areas like the roof, without his strength, height, and all-round awesomeness. Thanks Handsome! ;)