It has been a busy week. Not only did we lose the first hen to a hawk, we had another hen just up and die on us for no apparent reason. The day after finding the red dead, one of the Wyandottes konked out in the pen in the middle of the day. I had been out there collecting eggs twice already and everyone was all right. When I went out the third time there were signs that two eggs had been eaten in the nest boxes. This has been a problem and we haven't figured out who is doing it yet. We suspect the white and one of the reds, but haven't caught anyone in the act. So we try to collect a number of times when we can. After cleaning up the mess in the nest boxes I went around to the pen and there was the dead bird. No marks, nothing. Did she choke on an egg shell? Who knows. She was the hen that had followed Pete around the most and appeared to be the head hen. Was she pining for him? She is now buried and we are down to 21. The next day 20 of them laid eggs. Only one Araucana failed to produce that day. We know that because we only got two blue eggs and there are three of them. The last few days we have seen rather irregular production, ranging from 12 to 18, with a number laid late in the day. some of the girls are acting strangely and there is a lot of argument about nest box use. Esmeralda has decided to regularly bunk in with one of the Buffs, who likes to brood eggs and seems to protect her. She spends long hours camped out behind the Buff in the box, laying her blue egg for the Buff to protect. One of the reds spends alot of time trying to get into that same box with them, so perhaps she is the egg eater. The pecking order seems to be in disarray at the moment, so they act as if they are now expecting leadership from the humans. I am able to let them out in the middle of the day and get them to come back in fairly easily long before dark. Some will go into submissive posture when approached, so they can be picked up easily now. They seem to be asking me to play rooster and protect them. They also run right up to us if they have been out of our sight for just a short time. When Frank, Jennie and Keith came to give them treats tonight, they came running from all directions before they even saw what was offered. They seem to trust us all more now that they are more vulnerable. At some point one of the hens will emerge at the top of the order and take over the flock, but that has not happened yet. Losing the two at the top has apparently been traumatic for them. Some of them are finally showing signs of growing back some of the feathers Pete removed however. They are all very happy with the weather and the chance to get out and tear up the dirt in the gardens, looking for bugs and all the stray blades of grass. As Jeanne and I cut and cleared the bottom branches from many of the dying Colorado Spruces near the coop, the girls found new territory to dig up and had a ball. Also gives them a better chance to run for cover from hawks.
Although some of us miss Pete occasionally, particularly when hawks are around, we are basically happy he has moved on because now young Keith feels much more comfortable visiting the chickens, feeding them, and helping with the work. Pete had become a problem, particularly for someone of smaller size. He was body slamming the adults and we couldn't know what he might do to Keith, so he hadn't been around as much. Its good to have Keith here more often again. The girls are also more relaxed in many ways, even if they are a bit confused about leadership issues for now. Their wounds from Pete can heal and they may soon have their good looks back.
Wendy has started to work on fixing the back pen which collapsed under snow this winter. We plan to make it much larger, give it a new gate, fence in a good sized yard to go with it and engineer around the slanted roof to deal with next winter's snow better. We also plan to start about ten new chicks about mid April and will give them their own quarters while they are little. Then we will hope to integrate them with the other flock when they are old enough to defend themselves. These are insurance against further losses this summer from predators etc. In the fall we will see how many we have and may decide to do what all good chicken farmers eventually do with a few of them, particularly the ones we find are eating eggs, so the coop is not too crowded next winter.
from Peggy, rooster substitute for the moment
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