Eggs (week ending 6/18): 38*
Eggs (year to date): 1039
*Includes 3 Bantie eggs

I think the hens are feeling cramped in the coop again. The Class of 2005 hasn't quite gotten the hang of setting foot outside the coop to forage yet, so there's a lot going on, and the place is far from the quiet refuge that hens like when they go to lay eggs. I say this because I found a secret laying location over the weekend.

No problem, though. The culling is coming, and last night it got easier. Some nice folks stopped by who were interested in getting some additional chickens. They were most interested in the Banties, but Sir Poof-A-Lot a/k/a/ Handsome isn't for sale, nor is his female counterpart, who is currently stubbornly sitting on two eggs that aren't going to hatch (more on that in a moment). Beaker is laying, but I don't want to sell her, either - my daughter has gotten rather attached to her. That leaves the mystery rooster and the black Silkie/Cochin cross rooster - and I may be hesitant to get rid of him now, considering what I saw this morning.

See, I've read that Easter Egger hens are mean and ill-tempered, and I've been seeing that first-hand. The two I have aren't full grown yet, and I've already decided they've got to go. They were dinner table destined, but the folks who came buy were interested in EE roosters, so one or both may get a home soon. Good.

I've been defending members of the Class of 2005 from the two EE roos when I'm around because they're really overdoing the whole pecking order thing. This morning while finishing up the feeding and water routine and going out the gate, I heard an awful series of squawks. Looking up to see who was doing what to whom, I saw the little black Silkie/Cochin roo chasing the meaner/bigger of the two EE roos, which was easily half again the size of the S/C.

This was no ordinary chase. The S/C pursued the EE for a good thirty seconds or more, grabbing feathers, out-maneuvering him, and just generally showing him who was boss. They ran back and forth in front of the gate, then the EE ran to the goat fence and stopped, sticking his head through. The S/C ran through the gaps in the fence, grabbed the EE by the neck and continued giving him what-for.

So for the time being I dubbed the S/C Muhammad Ali - for the greatest fighter of all time. The S/C might not be, but I have to admire its spunk in taking on a larger, meaner roo like that.

On Thursday night the goat herd expanded by two as doe Ebby delivered two kids, both little bucks. One is all black except for ears, facial highlights, and socks on all four feet. The other has a lot of white, and looks more like the traditional Alpine coloring. It's definitely smaller than the other, and has an air of runt about it. My wife and I are debating doing some bottle feeding (our daughter was in Canada during the birth and is on a mission trip in West Virginia this week).

We had Ebby with Clover and her two kids, but Clover started getting territorial. When the buck kids would wander her way, she'd knock them over with her nose, and keep knocking them over when they stood. So last Saturday I mucked out the stable where we'd been keeping the wethers and the obnoxious doe that didn't get pregnant, put down some Dry Stall and fresh straw, and made it a nursery for Ebby and her two kids. Next Saturday: moving the big pile of manure I took out to the official manure pile.

Finally, I don't think that I'm going to get any chicks out of the broody Lady Poof-A-Lot. She started out sitting on nine eggs and is down to two. A couple broke, but others have mysteriously disappeared - three of them at once - and during daylight hours. We've speculated raccoons and rats (I thought they were both nocturnal), but I'm wondering about two-legged predators. I don't know. The two eggs she's on now are 25 days old and no sign of hatch. I'll give her until Saturday (they could be younger eggs since hens kept laying in her nest when she was off) and then deliver the bad news.

Meantime, looks like I'll be collecting some Bantie eggs for the folks who stopped by. Not for eating, but for hatching. Looks like I might be putting my toe into the fertile egg business. For one shot, anyway.

Eggs (week ending 6/11): 49*
Eggs (year to date): 1001
*Includes 4 Bantie eggs

Once again the beginning of work on the Chicken Tractor was put off, this time because of outside forces. My Mother is living with us now, and she had a bad week - by the time Saturday came around, I couldn't see straight.

Nevertheless, with the help of an extra pair of hands in the form of a family friend who likes to come and soak up all the farm ambiance without the actual responsibilities of keeping goats and chickens, I did manage to get through the chores and got the nursery knocked down. Collected a number of quite good photographs (because I wasn't running the camera) of the Class of 2005, and now have some materials I can use to start on the Chicken Genetics page. Also tried to identify as many potential roosters as possible and put blue nylon cable ties on their legs to ID them for the culling to come.

Earlier in the week I did manage to get some lumber sorted for most of the frame of the Tractor. I keep changing my mind about different aspects of it, what I want to do with it and all, but eventually all of that is going to get worked out. Hey, it's a big square frame of wood for the most part covered in chicken wire. It's not rocket science. How bad can it be? The big goat gate had to be tougher. It's just a matter of time and will.

Also triaged out the two Easter Egger roos. I put them in a dog cage outside the coop. They've become rather mean spirited lately, and were coming into the coop as we were releasing the Class of 2005 to attack them. Now I know this happens in chickendom, but the EE's were going above and beyond the call of duty. There's a difference between asserting your superiority and the kind of bullying that these birds were doing. I've long heard that EE roos were mean, and these two were no exception (except I'm wondering once more if they're both roos - only one is crowing and trying to jump hens - the other is a little lacking in tail feather development, but has all of the other obnoxious qualities of a roo - never mind, better the dinner table with them).

Eggs (week ending 6/4): 25*
Eggs (year to date): 952
*Includes 3 Bantie eggs

Let's see. Beaker, the other bantam hen (pictured here) has started to lay eggs. Hers are the same tiny size as the hen that is now broody, only Beaker's eggs are light brown (the broodymom's eggs are a creamy white).

The two easter eggers that I suspected were roosters are. One for sure, but the other is almost identical except for more of a splash of coloring and less tail feathers. Trying to jump hens has been observed (they really seem to go after that crazy old White Rock hen), and now attempts at crowing are in the mix. Put 'em on the cull list. That leaves me with one EE hen, maybe (hen for sure, not so sure about the color of eggs it will produce). Further, the mystery chick I took with the EE's is turning into an I-don't-know-what. All I know is that it seems to be bantam sized, and I thought I heard it try to crow a day or two ago. Next time I'm just going to buy straight run Americaunas from a hatchery and avoid horse trading.

Ths Saturday the Class of 2005 will be released. I'm taking down the barrier and the fence. I caught one of them in the coop with the adults - once they get on the new high roost, it's an easy hop over the wire - and this morning I watched one sitting on the roost as it attempted to crow for the first time. Caught him posthaste and marked his leg with THE BAND - one of those yellow nylon cable ties that go on and have to be cut off. This is THE MARK. THE MARK OF THE CULL!

I'll have to observe the rest of the class for roos with the exception of the White Leghorns. It's pretty obvious which of them are roosters. I think I might keep one WL roo, though, just so I can call it Foghorn. As in... well, you know.

A tougher call are the mutt birds. They're such a scramble of characteristics from their parents that deciding which is what may be a problem. At one point I thought that all the mutts that got the Wyandotte pea comb were females, but I'm not so sure that's the case now. I figure at least half will be roos. But which half?

There's also one White Leghorn female that's a runt. It's about half the size of the others. I figure this one is at the bottom of the chick pecking order. Maybe it'll catch up once it's outside and doesn't have to work as hard to compete for food.

Once the Class of 2005 gets a few more weeks of sunshine, greens and bugs under their belts, The Cull will happen. Not counting the unhatched eggs under the sitting Silkie/Cochin, I have 50 chickens. How on earth did that happen? If I were keeping them in the coop 24/7, I'd have a serious problem with crowding since I've technically only got space for 24. But letting them run free in the daytime takes a lot of that edge off.

I plan to keep four roosters. Sir Handsome Poof-A-Lot, the white Silkie/Cochin cross, a Buff Orpington, a Barred Rock, and a White Leghorn. Roger and Rocky are on the adopt-out list (I've got a couple of people who have asked about getting chickens, including roos). The rest are destined for the freezer. Between the roo culls and some of the older layers that are to be retired and a mix of birds to be adopted out, I think I can get the flock down to about half of what it is now.

Then I can watch my feed bill go down. And wait to see how many chicks the Bantie hatches.

Eggs (week ending 5/28): 47*
Eggs (through 5/31): 18**
Eggs (month of May): 183
Eggs (year to date): 927
*Includes 4 Bantie eggs and one broken egg
**Includes one broken egg

Right now I'm marveling at the efficiency of my Bantam-sized Silkie/Cochin cross. According to my coop calendar, she started to lay eggs at the age of 25 weeks. She laid 16 eggs over the next 20 days, and at 27 1/2 weeks, went broody. As I said, it's very efficient - lay just long enough to produce a good sized clutch of eggs and then hatch them out.

(Incidentally, there's been a recent discussion on Backyard Chickens about what breed of chickens are the best brooders, and so far Silkie/Cochin crosses are getting the most votes. On the other hand, the other cross, which I named Beaker due to its resemblance to a certain Muppet, has yet to lay or brood.)

Unfortunately, she won't be hatching out any of her own eggs this time. One was used when I made a meal called Mountain Man Breakfast a couple of weeks ago (a real heart stopper: a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, a pound of hash browns, a pound of shredded cheddar, an onion, and covered with salsa and sour cream) and the remainder became elegant little bite-size mini-deviled eggs (Hint: my wife had to use an icing dispenser to get the deviled yolks back into the tiny halves of the whites). Instead she is sitting on nine large-to-jumbo sized eggs from my other layers. She started out with seven, but while she was off the nest eating, a couple of hens slipped into her space and added a couple more. They've since (mostly) started using the nest boxes again.

The whole project of covering the plastic box with duct tape (to darken the inside) for use as a nest box was a failure. My wife speculates that the inside was just too big for their comfort. So I brought back the wooden floor duplex, and that seems to be the nest of choice for many of them now. I had to mark the eggs in the cubbyhole nest because a couple of hens keep trying to add to the broody's load. I used a carpenter's pencil at first, but that seems to be rubbing off after a day or two. I read on the Backyard Chickens board where some folks use a Sharpie marker, so I'm going to re-mark the eggs tonight. I wanted to use a Sharpie earlier, but was afraid of bleed-through. I guess that's not an issue.

Other farm drama:

The chicks from the Class of 2005 have reached the raptor stage at the age of six weeks. This is what I call the point at which they eat all the food before it gets refilled, and when it does, they descend like predatory creatures on the feeder. It may be about time to turn them loose. But not before I get pictures for the Chicken Genetics page I want to do.

I thought about moving the broody into the nursery, but I don't know if I'll have much luck. I tried to move her into the plastic box with no luck. And when I tried to move the broody Wyandotte late last year, that led to disaster, too. I'll probably just let her sit where she is.

I also moved one of the doe goats in with the wethers. She doesn't need to eat the more expensive high protein food that the pregnant and milking does are getting. She 's getting cantankerous, and it's looking more and more like she's not pregnant - just fat. Yesterday she escaped when my wife opened the chicken coop for me. As my daughter (maturely) said, "She's eating, she's obnoxious, she'd not giving milk and she's not pregnant, so she's not contributing anything to the farm." Looks like a sale could be in the future, especially if it means my daughter can keep another one of the kid goats.

This weekend: building the Chicken Tractor. I found a whole bunch of pre-cut pieces of wood that are two feet long - perfect, I think, for making a small tractor. I've had a problem finding long pieces of wood that don't weigh a ton, but I think the answer is in front of my face - the willow tree that the goats killed when they 1) ate the low leaves off of, then 2) stood on the branches to make them lower and then ate the tall leaves, and then 3) ate the bark off, effectively finishing the tree off. Several of the branches look like they'd be of suitable length for the top lengths of the tractor. Besides, it'd be kind of a rustic looking thing, given that most of the two foot pieces I found are finished on one side. I plan to take pics of the process and post those, too.