Teddy is ready to be a dad.

Teddy looking out  for his girls.

Here are some pictures of the "new" birds taken in January. Teddy is growing into his role as the man of the coop.  He is still unsure of the older birds, mostly because they run and peck at him any chance they get.  He is very protective of his sister hens, though, and they stick by his side as they roam the yard.  Teddy is actively fertilizing those that will let him, which is currently Louise, Lydia and Nellie.  Nora was blessed to receive an incubator for Christmas and we look forward to hatching some eggs sometime soon!

Chicks from a Friend

Baby chicks at a few days old.

Chicks from Mrs. Fontana

By: Nora

On July 23, we got 3 more chicks from the Fontana family. We named them Lydia Louise and Teddy. Roger is their dad. Teddy and Lydia's mom is probably a barred rock. We're not sure who Louise's mom is. They were born in an incubator at Mrs. Fontana's house.

(Note from Mom: Roger is the rooster who we raised at our house and then gave away because we were unable to have roosters.  This was Roger's second batch of hatched chicks.)

Lydia

Louise is in black, with the others at 3 months old.

A small black hen, (the smallest) who

I would say is “curious”.Whenever I dig a

path in the snow, she is always the first

to follow it.

Louise

Louise at 2 months old.

A white and black hen, (my favorite)

who if I hold for a long time, will

follow me EVERYWHERE!

Teddy

Teddy at 2 months old.  He doesn't have his gold feathers yet.

A barred rock rooster with gold.

His noises can be SO funny,

and he himself is cute.

Barbara the Brave

Barbara was the first little chick to figure out how to jump up on things.  Our brooder box had to continue to get taller and taller in order to keep Barbara in the box. 

 

Even as an older pullet, Barbara is always the first to greet us.  She makes it furthest out of the run to attempt to forage with the older hens and is quick to come even to our 6 year old.

Now at 5 months old Barbara has a tall red comb.  We think she will likely be the first of the new chickens to lay eggs.  We are patiently waiting for some of Barbara's finest.

Rosie becomes Roger

When we ordered four hens I thought for sure an additional four was too many.  We quickly grew fond of each of our hens and it seemed that four could be a good number.  However, as time passed we grew suspicious of our favorite "hen" Rosie. 

 Rosie/Roger at 7 Weeks

Some of the signs we saw:

Rosie was always very friendly to humans, but she greatly enjoyed attempting to fight with the other hens.  As soon as they all got outside to play Rosie would be jumping at and herding the other hens.

Rosie's legs were always a little bit bigger than the other hens.  She developed little bumps (spurs) on her legs at an early age.

Rosie's comb began to look red-ish at about 6 weeks.  S/He was an Easter Egger so her comb never got particularly large, but definitely had the right color.

Rosie always had beautiful feathers.  We were sure she would grow up to be the prettiest in the flock.  As more and more colors began to appear, especially that brick red color, we knew that this was not hen patterning. 

And lastly, when Rosie made that funny screeching noise (early attempts at a crow), we knew that Rosie was in fact a Roger.

Roger at 8 Weeks

It turns out Roger is a very beautiful type of Americana called a Golden Duckwing Rooster.

So what does one do when a hen turns out to be a rooster?  We would have kept him, but it is illegal in our town.  In fact I'm pretty sure the 2 weeks of crowing that we withstood did enough damage to our relationship with our neighbors.  The options were not great, but we were hoping to find someone we knew to adopt him into their flock so that our daughter could have an easier transition.

Enter: Happy Ending...

Thankfully we found a family from school to take Roger.  They were in fact very excited to have him join their flock of 11 hens.  We went to visit him after he had settled in and found he was very happy in his new coop. 

 Roger at 4 Months

 Look at those fantastic feathers!

Here is Roger trying to share a treat with Nora.  

What a sweet young man, he never forgot his ladies!

New Chickies 10 days old.

 

Amelia, Easter Egger, love those puffy cheeks!

 (left to right) Barbara, Rosie, Nellie

Nellie in front, Amelia and Rosie behind.

 Barbara, Rosie, Amelia and Nellie: enjoying some time outside the box.

Chickens on my lap, by Nora.

Here I am with Barbara and Amelia on my lap.  So cute!

Chicks With Some Grass, written by Nora

Nellie Amelia Rosie and Barbara did not like a little bit of grass. Then Rosie saw a piece of grass. She had it in her beak and they liked it (*note from Mom: the other chicks chased Rosie). ps chicks do not like grass- hens do like grass.

An additional note from Mom: One hour later the chicks are enjoying the patch of "grass" and dirt so much they are trying to dust bathe in it. Silly chickens!