Hug A Chicken!

If you’ve been reading my blog on a regular basis, you know that I have a new flock of birds which have been maturing and becoming egg laying miracles. They have gotten to know me and I’ve gotten to know them.

These  girls, are so affectionate and responsive. They just enjoy company and really like to sit and talk. Sometimes they talk the whole time you are sitting with them and others just sit passively on your lap and fall asleep, or rest. Then there’s “Little Owl”.I could actually write a book about Little Owl. She’s really funny. As a baby, when she’d find me sitting, she’d hop on my knee and dive under my armpit with her head and just sort of stay there, with her rump end exposed. It was always so darn funny. I never stopped her because she was so determined to do it. If I had on my jacket she’d just hop on my knee and dive right inside my coat flap, settle down and nap. Even now, I shake my head and laugh at the memory.

Little Owl

What Owl did, I never really understood. One day I happened on a video of a Mom hen and her group of babies. They were all happily pecking in the dirt around her, and when they saw something which startled them, they ran headlong into the Mom’s breast feathers found a way under and hid. Some even found a way under the wings and rump. One little Biddy didn’t make it under so far and all that you saw of her was a Rump poking out from under the hens wing. I started laughing so hard. That was exactly what Little Owl did! Oh God! I really was a Chicken Mom.

Little Owl is a big girl now, and she is one of my really good layers. She’s an Ameraucana who lays light aqua eggs. I always sort of dreaded her quitting the actions she use to do. They were so genuine and real that I didn’t want her to stop. I knew she saw me as “Mom” and she was coming to me for a rest and relaxation she couldn’t get otherwise.

I never had to worry about that. Little Owl still does the “Dive”. Here’s a photo of her heading for happy Lap Time.

Little Owl Running for Happy Lap time

And… Here’s the Dive!  I think she’s loves it as much as I do…

Happy Lap Time!

Have you Hugged Your Chicken Today? 🙂

Hug A Chicken!

 

♥Chicken Mom♥

Peep Peep

When the little fluffy bits of wiggling, scampering, peeping down arrived in baby form, my phone rang. It was the post office. The babies arrived in the mail!! Yea!

I flew down to the post office in the closest pants I could find. It was 7:00 in the morning! It was exciting! It was terrifying…

I had no clue how this whole thing would turn out. I didn’t know how they would turn out. I knew what breed, yes, but I didn’t know if they would be nice birds or mean birds.  Blah, blah, blah… (Insert worried panic-stricken face here). I was freaking out.

After raising other older biddies. I’m well aware of the potential for  different personalities. You can end up with chickens from hell, and rue the day you ever embarked on raising any, or you can get some really sweet birds. Still, I had ordered 14 and ended up with 15. I guess that extra chick was for luck. They added her to the order for the extra body heat at no charge. Biddies can get cold traveling and need each other to maintain a constant temperature.  Either way, I was in deep and now no matter what transpired I was a surrogate Mother to 15 – 24 hour old baby peeps. God Help Me.  God Help my bathroom…

Yeah… Ya see, I didn’t think this out very well. They ended up in the guest bathtub. Unceremoniously deposited on some utility towels and given food and water. Oh Gezz! They  need heat! I ran around thinking, thinking, looking, looking… Oh Thank God! A reptile light!  – Don’t laugh. I was desperate! Then I positioned an expansion rod over them and hung the light. Whew!  They were fine and happily pecking bouncing and drinking. Amazing! That was such a long flight over and I worried about them getting here dehydrated or not making it at all.  All worries for nothing. They were bright-eyed and happily being chickens.

I had them warm and happy, and now I was happy. Then, one of the little babies fell face forward into a pile of straw, all stretched out like she’d been shot with a cannon. Just sort of splayed like a dressed bird for dinner. Did she die?  I almost panicked. One after another they all started falling over. Just like the light clicked off on their energy field and they fell in a flat faced “chicken down”! position. I didn’t like this… My heart was racing. I’d never had little babies before. Usually the birds are a few weeks old when I bought them.  When the first little hen stretched with a big long leg stretch, I realized they were just tired and fell over from exhaustion; like my kids would after a long day playing. Sometimes the kids didn’t even get to the bed, but would land on the floor and pass out. Whatever, I didn’t care as long as they were healthy and just napping. I checked.  Yes, all breathing!

I didn’t have any sort of water container for them either. What was I thinking? I don’t know. Flying dumbly? Likely. I did figure out a make-shift one to put their drinking water in though. Here’s my idea. The cup kept them from falling into it.

That’s Georgia standing in the dish. She’s an Australorp.

So, even as ill-prepared I was for biddies, they still did just fine.  I didn’t know anything about raising biddies, especially not the tiny ones.

I was in love…

The babies got checked all day long and I woke in the night to look in on them. They saw me and usually roused and were happy to hear me talk to them or to be picked up.

They stayed in the tub until they were 4 weeks old. Now that was fun… (not). If I do this again I will have a proper brooder pen with heat lamps outside (I think). It was really nice getting to know them and learn their personalities. I don’t think if they had been outside, I’d have had nearly the time to know them like I do.

They are now 7 months old and laying. Most of them have names befitting their personality. I think most of them still identify myself as Mom, because they are especially attentive and most are pretty affectionate. I have a couple turd-heads who just don’t want to be mucked with. Fine with me… I have lots of snuggles for the ones who want to be snuggled with!

Here are a few of them at 5 weeks. They have a wonderful outside biddy yard.

Below is Georgia Photo-Bombing the snapshot!

Happily hopping on the little roost in the biddy yard.

I need to post some of their adult photos and will do that another day!

Enjoy your chickens!!

The Chicken Mom