Transitions

The day after we installed the new nesting boxes we found eggs in them. Our chickens have adjusted! To get ready for the chicks hatching we also built a new perch for the chickens and finished building our new outdoor run. That night we didn't let the chickens into their house, so they are now sleeping outside. We are hoping the chicks will hatch in a few hours!

Getting ready for chicks

Work continues on the chick coop and run. Yesterday, Ronit, Miriam and I installed a huge door to the outside run that will allow us access to the area on rare occasions, and in particular, a way to dump leaves into the run in the fall. We now just have two 2'x2' squares in the roof to cover with chick wire -- and we'll be done with the run.

Angel, our broody hen, spent what seemed like a huge amount of time yesterday standing on the ladder in the outdoor run. She seemed to be somewhat agitated, and we all started getting nervous that the eggs were getting cold. Finally, after approximately 30 minutes she returned to the eggs. We are still nervous, but hoping for the best. While she was out of the nest box Miriam found an unfertilized egg - though we threw it out because we do not know how long she had been sitting on it. Meanwhile, Pecky Becky, seems to be broody too. Starting on Saturday afternoon she too is spending all her time in a nest box. That means both our two nest boxes are occupied by setting hens. It leaves the other two hens with no place to lay their eggs, and it means that we are back to buying eggs at Star Market.

Today, Miriam and turned an unused kitchen drawer into three new nesting boxes, and mounted them on the garage wall, under the deck. This should give our two non-broody chicks a place to lay eggs -- and it will also serve the big hens when we separate them from the chicks we are expecting on Thursday.

New Chicks Lay

Finally, when they were 10 months old our chicks started laying. We think they started late because of the stress of being combined with the older chickens. Anyway, now we are getting 4 eggs almost every day. (We only have 4 chicks, so it means they are laying practicaly every day.

Day: Number of eggs:

Thursday: 4

Friday: 4

Saturday: 4

Sunday: 4

Monday: 4

Tuesday: 2

Wednesday: 2

Thursday: 4

Friday: 4

And I am sure we will get 4 eggs on Saturday, Sunday and maybe Monday!

Our Cousins Come to Visit

This took place recently, not a few months ago.

On winter break we had our cousins come from New York and New Jersey. They younger ones, Tal and Aaron loved the chicks. Every morning they would come with me to let the chicks out, all bundled up because of the cold. They filled their feeder, threw them scratch and sometimes even let them eat from their hands. They checked for eggs at least 5 times a day and were excited at every finding. They became experts on the chickens laying patterns and commented on everything.

Moving the Chickens to Friends'

Shachar,A friend of mine from school was over and I asked her if her family would like to take care of our chickens for about two weeks during the noisiest part of our renovation. She talked to her family and together we decided to move the chickens to their house. One Sunday my dad, my sisters, me, and my friends family went over to their house and all day long we worked on building a chicken coop. We dug a trench, weaved chicken wire together,and put up boards. Then in the afternoon when we were finally done with the coop we had to move the chickens over. We put the chicks in their house and then went on to get the older chickens in. They were much more reluctant to go in since it was the middle of the day, so we had to chase them into their house. Then along with all the kids in the neighborhood we lifted the two houses into a trailer attached to our car. We locked the coops down and drove to our destination. We tried to drive slowly and smoothly, but at every quick start-up or sharp turn we still heard flapping followed by squawking. Once we got there we unloaded the houses from the back onto a wheelbarrow. My friends' neighbor, parents and my dad all helped push, pull, carry the coops on the wagon down the big hill and to the aviary. We released the chicks first and then the big ones, and then watched them explore their new home. The ground we had chosen for their coop to be on had been full of weeds but after the aviary had been completed either they were covered in dirt, pulled up or completely stomped flat, still, the chickens pecked it . For the next couple of weeks I went over to Shachar's two or three times a week to visit the chickens. I missed them a lot. The one good thing was that I (almost) always had plenty of time in the mornings before school because I no longer let them out (though even when we still had the chicks I never had to take care of them, I simply chose to, my parents could have, and sometimes did). And there were also no dark and scary nights when I had to lock them up. But besides those two little reasons it was terrible not having them. For one, now we had to buy eggs again!!!! Slowly I started visiting the chicks less often and I did not get to watch them grow up.

Together

Soon we combined both groups of chickens, because the chicks' current area was too small. The hens were not too nice to them at first but they adjusted, though they still hung out in separate groups. We tried to let them out as much as possible so that they could have more space. It was very chaotic and though I loved the chicks I knew I liked it better when we had just had five chickens. When we only had five it was peaceful and I could always say hello to each chicken individually. Now all the chickens had to push to get to me and were impatient when I came. But all in all I think the chicks (includes chickens) were happy, and so was I, it was nice having ten chickens. Then we started construction on our house. We decided it would be best if we moved the chickens somewhere else.

This happened many months ago, so it may lack detail.
I will write a new post continuing this one soon.

Chicks Move Outside

I almost forgot about the blog which is why I didn't write for a long time. I had written this by hand a couple months ago, but forgot to post it.

Since we knew we would bring the chicks outside soon we built them a little house of wood with a window in the front. They lived in for about a week. Then because the chicks were almost six weeks old we decided to bring them outside permanently. They had grown a lot of feathers though fluffy (our Barred Rock) was still very fluffy and had fewer feathers than the others. We also built a three foot by four foot portable fence, so that we could enter the chicks four foot by five foot area and then close it so no chickens could get in or chicks could escape. Because the area we closed off for the chicks was in the aviary the chickens were annoyed at losing that space. Their food was where the chicks were now so we moved the too. By the time the chicks reached two months, they wanted more space. So whenever we let the chickens into the yard we would let the chicks into the aviary and close the door. Soon we stopped closing the door when the chickens were out, so that they would mix with the chicks more. Whenever they were inside the aviary, we put scratch next to the fence dividing the chicks from the chickens so they would notice each other more.