Little Tikes

The chickens getting some water out of our lil girls water table.  :)

18 Weeks/Feed

The chickens turned 18 weeks and are really big!  Its not just their size, but their appetite too.  When they were just little chicks, it took 12 weeks to go through a 25lb bag of the Start&Grow chick feed.  Now as they are a little older, it took 6 weeks to go through the same bag!  I equate the change in feeding a baby boy to feeding a teenage boy.  :)

But now that they are about ready to lay eggs, its time to switch their feed.  I stopped by the Golden Mill yesterday and picked up a 50 lb bag of the Purina Layena crumbles. They say to start the chickens on the Layena about 1 month before they start laying eggs and keep them on the feed through their laying cycle. It sounds like a good feed for them because its free of animal proteins and fats too to help the chickens made strong good tasting eggs.  

I also picked up some straw to start geting their nest box ready.  The chicks have been digging in the mulch around the yard a lot more and its start to look like a war zone with all the random bomb blast holes chicken holes in the mulch.  Since its been a bit cooler lately, I'm taking the behavior as they are starting to feel like nesting.  I'll post some photos of the nest box as soon as I get the straw in.

Speaking of straw, I had to buy a bale of straw...  its quite a bit for my three chickens.  What do others do to store their extra straw?  Is it worth trying to save the unused amount of straw?

Chicken Video

Here is a time lapse video of the girls.  I have a little FlipHD camera that I set up early one morning to capture what the chickens do when waking up for the day.  I found it interesting to watch what they find interesting...

17 Weeks

Princess Aurora, Mermaid and Belle - 17 Weeks old

Summer is quickly coming to an end which means eggs should be here pretty soon.  I have enjoyed the growth of the chicks over the last few months.  At the beginning of summer, I had just built the coop and even brought out a heat lamp to keep the little girls warm.  Now I let them out for 3-4 hours a day to roam the backyard them.  I even ran an errand to the store once while the chickens were free ranging.  Through the fall, the days will get cooler and their time outside the coop will shorten, which will make me a little sad.  I'll do my best to let them have some free time after work.

My son is captivated by the chickens

My son who is a little over 6 months nowLOVES to watch the chickens.  We go out in the back yard while the chicks are free ranging and he just sits and follows them.  They are a little curious but mostly just wonder around the grass and shrubs.

My son following the chicks.

Friends?

Our little cat, Ani, hanging out with the chickens

We have two cats along with the chickens.  Both cats are pretty good hunters and over the years, we have had a wide variety of 'hunts' brought into the house from snakes, bunnies, birds and voles.  While the chickens were smaller, both cats would come outside and immediately you could tell they were about to pounce on the chicks.  I don't know if its the chickens recent bigger size, or that the chickens have learned to flap and protect themselves, but the cats and chickens now live in harmony... well, maybe not harmony, but at least they call all be outside in the backyard together.

16 Weeks

Not too much to say, so I thought I would post some picts of the chickens and kids.

Here is a photo of my daughter going out one afternoon to check on the chickens.

Here are my two nieces with Mermaid.

14 Weeks

Princess Aurora and Mermaid saying hi to each other - 14 Weeks

So, the chickens are now 14 weeks old.  About 8 weeks or less and we should have eggs!  Its been a fun summer with the chickens.  I let them free range as often in the grass as possible and have even gotten to the point where I can open the coop door to let them out, then after a couple hours, they meander and walk themselves back into the coop. It is nice to see them learning and keeps me from looking like a fool running around trying to catch 3 chickens.

Belle - 14 weeks old

I'm watching you

So, my previous theory of not having to worry about predators for the chickens was debunked this past weekend.  While watching movies in the back yard, two little raccoons came out and said hi.  Here is a photo of them on top of the garage, only a few feet from the chicken cage. I hope that the chickens are safe in their coop and cage!

3 Chicks on a Stick

I went out back to check on the chicks and found all three hudled on the outside roost!

Happy 4th!

Hope you had some watermelon too!

Natural History of the Chicken

I came across this film on Netflix Instant Que about chickens. It is produced by PBS in 2001 and is a fun collection of stories of people all over the US who have chickens in their lives. Like the lady who swims with her rooster 'Cotton' and uses a blow dryer to dry him. I'll let her tell you how she takes care of the chicken poop...

Another guy raised 25 fighting roosters and boy were his neighbors mad. They counted 20,000 'crows' in a day!

The video footage of the high production chicken farms was astounding too! Speaking of high production, another interesting fact was that when the video was made, the US slaughters 8 billion chickens per year for meat!

My favorite story is of a chicken from our own Fruita, CO named Mike.  I wont spoil the surprise... Enjoy the documentary!

 Check out The Natural History of the Chicken on Hulu. ( http://www.hulu.com/watch/336685 )

12 weeks

Chicken Coop 360 pan

Chicken Tetherball

When you read the blog post, you probably had one of two ideas.

1 - Two chickens playing tether ball against each other

2 - Two kids playing tetherball with chicken instead of a ball

Well, if you are a reader of this blog, hopefully you had idea #1!

Another blogger sent me a link a couple months ago about what chicken eat.  Its a good read with some helpful info, good ideas for treats (like a lettuce tetherball) and a funny story. Check it out, chicken heads!

http://gardenally.blogspot.com/2012/04/chickens-love-treats.html

Feeder

This post is nothing more then a photo of the 3 chicks eating from the feeder.  When I made the feeder, I questioned putting in 3 holes in it as opposed to one long tray.  From what I saw today, it looks like the 3 holes is working well for the girls.  When they eat, Belle usually tries to take feed or worms or watermelon from the others.  With the 3 holes in the feeder, they each can eat in peace.