Franglorious Chickens

We have 2 black Silkie chickens, Frances and Gloria. At a glance, it's hard to tell them apart. Since it's hard to tell which is which when we see them, we have mashed-up their names to "Franglorious".

One of "Franglorious" - not sure which one.
Don't you love that top-knot hairdo?

One half of Franglorious is currently laying adorable little eggs while the other is broody, which means she wants to sit on a clutch of eggs (real, or even imaginary) in the nest. This Spring, we have decided to let her sit on a few eggs, to see if they'll hatch.

Meet the Baby-Daddy

This is my "serious but moody" pic

Our Partridge Silkie rooster "Chipmunk" has funky black top-hat fluff, beautiful copper-brown fluffy feathers, and an iridescent green tail. He has a crow with a decided blues-riff to it. And recently, he's added syncopation. "Cock-a-doooo-e-ooo"... swing it, baby!

That's me. Keeping watch.

We've tried imagining what cross-breeds with every hen in the flock would be like. Too bad playing with genetics isn't like playing with Legos.

Yet.

 

Some hens didn't make the cut:

Penguin, who is very personable and friendly

Honeysuckle, the buff Minorca (too flighty, untamable) You move and she runs away.

Majora, the black Minorca (escapes too dang often, dreadful wanderlust) If I find her outside the fence one... more... time...

Penguin the Big Black Chicken (so sweet and personable, yet such an Amazon she will NOT be mated with. She just stares him down, like "Ri-i-i-ght.")
Penguin is the surprise favorite of the flock. She comes looking for me, takes treats gently, and sometimes I wonder if she's part dog.

The Favorites So Far:

Petite little Astrid, the Hambug

Astrid the Hamburg (petite, beautifully speckled feathers, beautiful pinkish-creme-colored eggs)

Twyla the Dominique (black and white stripey!) (Yet kinda chatty. Too chatty... Gossipy even...! As in, "Shut UP Twyla!")

Mocha the Easter Egger (fluffy cheek-muffs and sad brown Paul-McCartney eyes. Lays green eggs)

Frances the Black Silkie (one half of "Franglorious") because fluffy chickens are SO DANG CUTE!

Twyla, the Dominique. Queen of gossip, and chitter-chatter.

I wonder what will hatch? I just hope it's not a rooster. Or if it is, I hope it has his daddy's signature Blues Crow.

Glowing Eyes in the Coop!

After my recent round with my own dogs dispatching a rabid raccoon outside my chicken coop, and then having to get rabies shots myself because I checked my dogs for wounds right after, we are a little more aware of predators and their problems around here.

Last night I sent my oldest, who is 14, out to shut the chickens up for the night. I was feeling bad, lying on the couch after one of my rabies boosters. So far, they seem to make me achy and twitchy, and then clean out my bowels the following day.

Usually it takes my son a little time to do this. He'll be out there pulling one or another bird down for a snuggle while they are all calm and sleepy. Sleepy chickens are amazingly adorable and snuggly. But this time he comes back in rather too quickly.

He looks like he's seen a ghost. "I see eyes! In the coop!"

Ken and I spring into action. "Gloves, you need gloves!" I tell my husband. (previous lesson learned: don't confront wildlife unprotected.)

We slip on our coats, shoes, and headlamps, and he grabs the super Mag light. The kids grab the dogs to keep them from joining the fray.

On the porch, I grab a hoe (long handle, better for pinning the critter, right?) and hubby grabs a pickaxe.

With the kids and dogs safely inside, we head around the house to the coop.

"I don't see it," he says, shining the Mag light carefully around outside the coop.

I shine my head lamp through the hardware cloth wall, toward the food trough. "I see it! I see eyes!" I exclaim. "It's by the food trough!"

Two red reflections had lit up in the beam of our combined lights. The orbs are wide enough apart to be a medium-sized predator, and both forward-facing - definitely a predator. I crept closer so I had a clearer line of sight, and aimed my light again.

The two glowing orbs lit up again.

And so does the orange head.

And the orange nose.

And the orange triangle ears.

Hey... I know that orange head.......

"WILLOW!!!!" I burst out laughing, laughing at the hilarity of us going carefully and bravely into battle, and at the relief that our dangerous predator in the coop was none other than our needy adorable kitty, Willow, most likely hunting mice by the chicken trough. This is something she has not been seen doing before this!

Still laughing, I head over to the window where the kids are watching safely from inside the house, and reveal the secret of our Dangerous Invader.

Apparently brave Willow had placed herself on After Hours Rodent Duty, and we interrupted her in her vigilance. Well, I'm glad to see at least one of the cats has joined Cocoa the dog and myself in the battle again those wee chicken-feed thieves.

And super-glad it wasn't an actual dangerous invader.

We congratulated our son on making the right choice of coming for backup.

But afterwards, we're still laughing about it.

Freakin' Raccoon

"Well that was exciting," my son says to me.
"You have no idea," I reply.

Raccoon

It's a cold Friday here today - we're having one of those peculiar North Carolina winters where it's getting well below freezing here in central NC. Right now it's around 3 in the afternoon, and it's only about 24°F degrees out there.

Today around 2:30 Cocoa was barking. And barking. That's unusual. She usually would rather be in here with me. Then the chickens started clucking loud. I went outside to take a look.

Inside the fence, right behind the chicken coop, Cocoa had a raccoon treed about 20-25 feet up in a pine tree. Oh crap.

Niko, 100 pounds of aging Newfoundland mutt, had come outside with me, and immediately joined up barking with Cocoa, focused on her target.

I was torn. I wanted it to leave, but if it did, I knew it would be back. I was afraid of the imminent fight between the raccoon and my dogs. "Please die quickly," I pleaded to it. A raccoon can eat chickens. I've heard it will start eating them before they're dead. It can also eat cats.

I realized I was unarmed, and ran around the chicken coop. I wanted a solid 2 x 4 in my hands.

By the time I had a board in my hands, the raccoon had fallen out of the tree and Cocoa had it by the neck and Niko by the back end, both of them furiously flipping figure eights with their heads. In a few more seconds it was dead.

What you're not reading here is the surging feelings of panic, empathy, fear, the shouting, and when I fell down and hit my mouth.

The next twenty minutes were spent trying to get the thing away from Cocoa without touching it, and flip it over the fence. I didn't want them to tear into it.  Every time I would get it away from her and lift it on the board, she'd leap up and grab it back down. We tracked all the way across the back yard like this. I finally got it near the far side of the fence, and having to grab it by the foot to get the carcass over the fence.

Grateful for social media, I realized Animal Control needed to be called. They came and removed the carcass. The dogs are current on their shots.

The next day, Animal Control decided it was indeed necessary for the dogs to get boosters for their rabies shots, but they didn't think the raccoon needed to be tested. Monday I toted 2 dogs and 2 cats in to the vet.

The Aftermath

The raccoon tested positive for rabies.

After talking to the nurse at the Health Department (part of the animal handling procedure) we came to the conclusion that I did have a slim chance of being at risk after this encounter. Her main points of concern were that a) I touched the animal, and b) I checked my dogs immediately for wounds after the event, putting me at risk for contact with rabid saliva.

So I had to get the shots series as well. How wonderful.

My youngest son kept me company while I waited for 4 hours in the Emergency Room Friday night. I got a shot in my arm, and 5 in my rump for a total of 14cc's of liquid in all. The shots left a horrid taste in my mouth, made me feel kinda flu-achy, and the following day my bowels cleared out. Needless to say I also felt like crud, and was pretty crabby. The following night I couldn't sleep well. My body was very twitchy and restless, to the point of waking me up, and I could not make my body stay relaxed.

I went back the following Monday for the next shot - only one in the opposite arm this time! Followed by more achiness, feeling crabby, and bowel-clearing, but not nearly as much twitchiness. And still that awful taste in my mouth.

I have 2 more to go.

Moral of the Story

Keep your dogs up to date on their shots. Don't touch the carcass without gloves. And don't check your animals for wounds afterwards without wearing gloves. 

Chickens, Roosters, and Getting Ready for the Cold

Stay warm everyone! We are expecting a low tonight of 12 °F, and a high tomorrow of 23 °F - for central NC that is absolutely ARCTIC!!!

Today I just shored up the chicken coop for the coming arctic blast. Over the coming Spring I plan to make the changes more permanent (i.e. with hinges and latches and such) but for now the lower venting windows are all covered-over with scraps and feedbags and whatnot.

Since the gals were not bothered by the nesting-box curtains I added awhile ago, I stapled up a simple feed-bag fringe-door cover for between the run and house. I hope it blocks some of the cold, and they are not too freaked out to go thru it. If so, I can easily pop it back off.

Molting

This morning I thought my chickens must have had a huge pillow-fight overnight in the coop - there was an explosion of white feathers everywhere! But it's just Snowflake, the white Leghorn, molting. White feathers really do stand out, though!

I was delighted to get 2 eggs so far today - maybe even 3, since Honeysuckle the buff Minorca hen is still busy in the box. I do miss eggs from Mocha (light-greenish eggs) and from Astrid, my Hamburg (small light pinkish ones, delicately shaped). They are both just finishing their molt. Snowflake's self-inflicted pillow-fight most likely signifies the start of her molt, so it will be awhile before we get  back to our daily supply of jumbo white eggs... By next Spring we should be up to about a dozen a day! Yikes!

Chipmunk's Rooster Woes

I have a small mixed flock of 14 birds, just over half of which are non-bantam. We had 2 (accidental) Silkie roosters, Chipmunk and Freyr. After much consideration, we gave Freyr, the more dominant one, away. The girls had accepted Freyr's advances, but he harassed my husband, and having 2 roos was too much noise.

Chipmunk tries, but he is really bad at roostering. He has no idea how to flirt with the girls - they run away from him. It's worse than watching middle-schoolers on the playground. Occasionally when he does jump on one, he is too small to, um, make the connection. In the morning when I let them out, I watch him chase girl after girl with no luck. It's really kinda sad to watch, although I did have to laugh when the largest gal we have just stood her ground and gave him a "oh really?" look this morning. Is there anything I can do to help him integrate better into the flock? The girls all laugh at him, poor boy!

I have tried little things... He sleeps outside on the run's roosting bar with the one gal he does NOT harass (Mocha), and when it's cold, we move them both into the coop. I try to put them both on the highest roosting bar. The 2 Silkie gals are usually broody, but when then are out and about in the morning he's on them first thing if he can be.

He's not aggressive, he's just freakin' clueless on how to entice the ladies. He's an incredibly adorable bird (a Partridge Silkie) but just an absolute loser in the Mojo & Flirting department. I hope he can improve.

Freyr the Roo has an Insecure Morning

Freyr the grey Silkie-roo has learned to crow in the morning. When he first started doing this, he clearly didn't have his roo-voice yet. He sounded like a cross between a teenager with a voice-change happening, and goose playing a party-tooter, badly. Some mornings he gets through the whole rooster theme-song, sometimes not. Some days I don't think he gets the sheet music in time, so he just makes something up. Some days he likes to mix things up and transposes the middle notes. Today's performance sounded sad and insecure. It sounded like he was saying "I'm just not that suuuuuuuure" over and over. I hope he has a better day and all those girls are nice to him.

Freyr the Persian-Kittenosaur Rooster

Treehouse Style & a Chicken Coop Door

Woke up this morning, started worrying about finishing hanging the door to the baby-chicken coop, got tired of worrying about worrying about it again, so I did it, before coffee. And I did some other chicken-chores. Of course it was only going to take a little time. Boy was I wrong. I came in for a shower and lunch after 2pm. But I'm pretty satisfied with the results.

I grew up with a dad who did some pretty awesome furniture and fine woodworking. When you think of that style of furniture crafting, think how precise and pretty that needs to be. You measure stuff. Precisely. And allow for the kerf. I took woodshop twice in Art school, and also worked Set Design & Construction in college. I know how to do all that stuff. Half the fun of treehouse style is breaking the rules.

When we were kids, we built this awesome treehouse back in the woods from construction scraps. You see, that's "treehouse style"... a lot more eyeballing, guesswork, making it up as you go, and using the scrap that fits. Back then, we used nails, because that’s what we picked up off the ground around the construction sites. Nowadays I’m armed with 2 cordless drills - one for pilot holes and one for screws. And I’m loving this cordless circular saw!

The baby-coop is much more treehouse style, with its mash-up of old bunk-bed and swimming-pool pieces. The door is made from scraps from the bed-slats, wood scraps, and scraps of hardware cloth from the big coop. The frame of the bed is the roof, the corners are uprights from the pool, and the whole thing is wrapped in chicken wire. (I do plan to add some hardware cloth for better security).

It's all painted purple now, and it looks more cohesive!

Chainmail Chick and her gang of chicks came by several times to inspect. I think they approve? Freyr kept ducking into the baby coop to snack at the baby-chick feeder, bringing his women around one at a time, like it was some verboten date-night hang-out. (Shh... they actually serve the same food as the big house in there.)

Yesterday Freyr charmed us with some of his crowing antics. I actually had time to run in the house and get the kids to come out and see him perform. He really has improved. I hope he gets the hang of it soon. He sure has been busy pursuing the ladies. I think he’s forming a special bond with Mocha - and she seems to like him, too. But that doesn’t stop him from chasing the rest of the girls around, too.

So tonight the babies sleep in the baby coop, with a door that closes on hinges. Which I built and installed. Myself.