Some days I do believe raising chickens might be more mentally taxing than trying to raise a 13 year old son! That was pretty mentally taxing but these chickens can be quite challenging.
I did find a home for one of the extra roosters. He’s getting picked up today. Two more to go and we may have someone who wants one, or both, of them.
We think we’ve managed to whittle (not literally) the raccoon population down so that they aren’t such a menace. I haven’t had anything show up on the trail cams for the last five nights. That could be a record.They must have spread the word that Vince was on the warpath after something got the turkeys.
But . . this little doll . .
Della
Her name is Della and she’s a Black Tailed White Japanese Bantam. She probably doesn’t weigh one pound and she’s so soft. Instead of feeling like she has feathers, she feels more like she’s covered in silk . . like one of the silky yarns from The Loopy Ewe! 🙂
Della is in the pen with the 10 mean red hens but so far, they’ve been nice to her. Did I say that Della has the shortest little legs? She is so cute! Probably week before last, she began laying. In fact, she began laying while we were on vacation, so she’s been laying about 2 weeks. Saturday I thought she was spending an awful lot of time on the nest. Surely it wasn’t taking her hours and hours to lay an egg. No . . it wasn’t! She’s already gone broody.
The 10 red hens are still laying smallish eggs but Della steals all their eggs and tries to sit on them. The main problem is . . none of those eggs are fertile. I move her around and take all the eggs she thinks she’s going to hatch but then someone else will come in and lay another egg and Della is happy and content once again . . til I find another egg under her.
Yesterday I went and got four eggs from the Dominique chickens. I put a big black “X” on them, so I know they’re Della’s eggs. She’ll keep taking all the eggs that the red hens lay and they’re never going to hatch, so I’ll remove them from underneath her and let her keep the four with the “X” on them.
I’m guessing about July 20, we should have 2 or 3 . . maybe even 4 baby chicks. Just what I need . . more baby chicks.
Vince and I talked about it and I think it’s worth keeping a bantam in every coop since they love to sit on eggs. It’s a whole lot easier than using an incubator and they’re pretty dependable sitters. I just wish I had some Iowa Blue eggs that I could have Della hatch for me but for now, we’ll be happy if we get a few more Dominique babies. Della will never know that they aren’t really her offspring. She will love them like they were her own flesh and blood. Chickens are like that, you know? 🙂
Vivian says
Oh, she is pretty enough and clean enough to keep in the house.
JudyL says
She is cute and she is a nice chicken but I won’t ever have a chicken in the house. Yes, I said “ever”! They are never that clean (chickens . . not my house!)
Dottie N. says
She is beautiful!
Carolyn says
REALLY cool! I think she is very pretty. If I ever get Chickens I’m going to contact u before I do to see what’s best. I can’t see me getting Chickens though.
Joyce says
How does she steal the eggs? Does she nudge them around, or does she just see an egg and goes and sits on it? (My grandparents got rid of all their chickens when I was about 6…I don’t remember much about them!)
JudyL says
I wish I knew! In that coop, it’s not such a big deal but in one of our other coops, it’s about a 6″ rise to get into the egg boxes and the Silky bantams in there would get all the eggs from the other egg boxes. I have no idea how they did it.
Amy (NW WI) says
HA! We have so much in common lately, Judy! As always, I love hearing about your chicken endeavors; to learn, to compare and to chuckle about many of the same things we are going through.
One nice aspect about chickens hatching out chicks; they will be easier to incorporate into the pecking order. Although — do you have a plan brewing about when they hatch? Without a rooster in the pen, will the “mean reds” behave with the new little ones, or are you going to separate Della and the hatchlings? Just curious.
Also, I’m super happy that the raccoon critters have been silent lately!!!!!! 😀
JudyL says
Last time we had one of the reds (previous chickens) that went broody and I got eggs from another coop, all the other chickens in the coop (no roosters) were fine. The only problem now is that I’ve given her eggs from the Dominique chickens and those chickens can’t stay in the red coop unless they’re all hens because now, I do have the Iowa Blues in there too and there are roosters and I want to be able to hatch more Iowa Blues so I can’t have an off breed rooster in there.
It’s all so complicated! 🙂
JudyL says
Next time Della gets broody, and she probably will about stay that way, and I can give her Iowa Blue eggs to hatch, that will make life so much easier. I’m thinking I may just stick a bantam in each coop and whatever eggs I’m wanting hatched, I’ll just stick them under her when she goes broody and . . I’ll never have to deal with incubators and brooders again!
lynn says
We have a similar problem. We have one duck, Mrs. Muscovy, she sat on her unfertilized eggs for 2 months. I felt so sad for her. One day when she was in the pond, I switched out all of her eggs for fertilized chicken eggs. We now eagerly await the arrival of ch-ucklings. I hope she doesn’t tell them they can swim.
Dora, the quilter says
Thank you for posting this because now I realize I must be related to Della since I seem to just naturally nurture anyone’s children! This gives a whole new and welcome meaning to “being a chicken”!