Backyard chickens

We live in a small house with just a patio backyard, so it never felt like an option to keep chickens until we move to a larger house. But after months of pining, Morgan finally said, “lets get the chickens”. I did a lot of research on which breeds are quietest, are good layers, and have a friendly demeanor. I decided I wanted to get three Ameraucana chicks. Seduced by the low price per chick online, I loaded up my digital cart. When I got to the checkout page and found out that shipping was going to be $60, I closed the tab.

Our first chicks

Instead, we decided that we would buy them on Craigslist. There was much less variety in breeds to choose from in the local area. I found a lady nearby selling “Olive eggers”. Her chickens are half Ameraucana and half Marans. We got in contact and got her last two chicks! They were already almost a month old when we brought them home. Since we were first time chick owners, we didn’t mind that our chicks were a little older.

– May –

We originally had a plastic bin to keep the chicks in. They were so cute cheeping around and hiding in the light bulb box. I would spy on them at night sleeping in the box under their red heat lamp. We decided to name them Quinn and Ashe after two AD carries in the game League of Legends. Ashe and Quinn quickly out grew the box and tried to escape and perch on the edges.

Morgan bought a dog crate that we used as a temporary coop while the cheeps lived in the garage. He would let them out and they would run around everywhere pecking and pooping on the floor.

– June –

Know before they crow

When we bought the chicks, we knew we were buying them “straight run”, which means that they weren’t sexed at birth and therefore could be male or female. The lady we bought them from told us she thought they were both pullets, but couldn’t be 100% accurate. We began to suspect Ashe was a rooster about a week after taking the chicks home. I spent hours reading articles and posts online on “how to tell if your chicken is a rooster”. The first clues were that Ashe’s comb was significantly larger and redder. Ashe also was the leader of the two chicks and would always be the first to try a new treat or peck at my garden. We caught Ashe jumping on Quinn, claws outstretched, and I decided I would just post a picture online and find out for sure. Within minutes, a poster responded: cockerel.

Getting rid of our rooster

When we found out that Ashe was a cockerel, we knew we couldn’t keep him. It was really sad. The chicks were best friends. If we separated them, they would both cheep loudly in distress as if calling out for each other (even though the other one was just in the back yard). Morgan said we couldn’t sell the rooster on Craigslist because the only people that would want him would use him for cock fighting. I didn’t think that we would have cock fighters in the bay area, but I looked it up and sure enough, there has been a recent cock fighting ring bust in one of the neighboring cities!

The choice was made to abandon the rooster on the side of the road. We thought it would be better to give him a chance in the wild instead of ending up in the hands of a cock fighter. One day, without telling me, Morgan and his friends took the rooster for a joy ride and dropped him off somewhere in the hills. They said he just stood there looking stunned while they drove away. 🙁 We hadn’t even moved the chicks outside for a night before. So I’m sure this was quite a shock. I don’t feel good about abandoning Ashe.

Replacements

Since we were now down to one chick, I convinced Morgan to let us get two more chicks. To insure we would not have to ditch any more unprepared chickens on the side of the road, we would buy them pre-sexed from the hardware store. Since they would be newborn chicks, we got two in case one didn’t make it.

We went to the Ace Hardware store near where Morgan grew up. Right when we walked in the door, there was a large brooder with about 50 baby chicks. They were sooooo cute! The store clerk helped me pick out two easter egger chicks and put them in a box with some pine shavings. Since they all looked so similar, I picked the lightest chick and a more average brown chick.

The chicks fell asleep on Morgan on the way home! They were so cute. We named them Peaches and Cream. They had the same chipmunk pattern but one was more white and the other more brown. We kept the new chicks in the plastic box with the pine shavings and Quinn stayed right next to them in the dog crate.

– July –

Field trips outside

Once the chicks were about two weeks old, we started taking them on trips outside of the garage to the back yard. I had read that chickens you have from a chick are supposed to be more friendly. None of our chicks really liked being held. We could pick them up. If we held them around the wings, they wouldn’t struggle- but you could tell they would really rather be doing their own thing.

I found a list of chicken approved foods and started experimenting with what they liked. Carrot greens, lettuce, and yogurt were all eaten eventually. They didn’t seem to care for strawberries or raspberries. The holy grail turned out to be dried mealworms. All three chicks would go crazy for them. We named it “Cheepie Crack”. They eat it like they’ll never see it again.

Cream quickly became my favorite chick. Cream was the friendliest chick and the most adventurous. When we moved the bin into the dog crate with Quinn, Cream was the first of the little chicks to figure out how to fly up to the perch. It took Peaches a few days to figure out how to get onto the perch. Cream would try to teach Peaches, but Peaches was just much more hesitant.

Having Peaches and Cream from baby chicks was so exciting because we go to see them really change over time. Every day they would get a few more feathers and lose a little more down. As they grew, we started to notice Cream’s comb starting to come in, while Peaches’ was noticeably absent.

– August –

Uh oh, here we go again?

The chicks were about 6 weeks old and Cream has started showing comb and typical male coloring patterns. The splotching of red/brown feathers is a really bad sign here. Females tend to be a more drab, consistent pattern. Males can have irregular patterning and brighter colors. I also noticed that Cream’s tail is pretty different than Peaches’. There were some behavioral signs like posturing and being the ringleader of the chicks (even over Quinn the big chicken).

Some signs that Cream might not have been a cockerel was feathering timing consistent with Peaches and size (same size and leg thickness as Peaches).

I was really hoping that Cream would be a girl since we had bought them pre-sexed. I guess Cream is the 5% chance of getting a male. We changed Cream’s name to “white chick” in order to not get too attached. Aaron gave me some suggestions on what to do with white chick- including leaving him in a box outside of a chinese restaurant :O .

New digs!

All this time the cheepies have been living in the dog crate in the garage. They are really messy and it was making our garage unusable for anything else. For a few weeks Morgan was demanding they move outside. I didn’t want to move them outside until we could get them a real coop. I looked into building one ourselves and even drew up some plans. We couldn’t decide on a coop plan and Morgan was dead set about using the dog crate as part of the frame so we just argued about it for weeks.

Finally, when Morgan was out of town, I went to Home Depot and just bought this pre-fabbed coop. I had promised that the chickens would be out of the garage by the time he came home. It had most of the features we were looking for- well ventilated, but draft free roosting area, nesting boxes, easy cleaning, and an enclosed run. It was also small enough to fit on the patch of dirt in the back yard. It’s cute, but flimsy. This thing would probably not stand up to severe weather or predators. Luckily, we haven’t had much of that here in Northern California.

I tied it to the rack with webbing we normally use for making climbing anchors. From the parking lot, I called Aaron (the very best brother), and he agreed to come over and help me get it off the car and built in the backyard.

Driving back took over 20 minutes since I was driving like an old grandma. Surprisingly, the coop was still there when I got home.

The box said it would take 45 minutes to set up, but it took us an hour and a half. It was dark by the time we finished.

Rusty didn’t offer any help in the coop building!

After screwing all the pieces together, we grabbed the cheeps and tossed them into the coop through the window. They went right to the roosting bars and got comfortable!

It’s a boy!

Three weeks later and the chicks are now 9 weeks old. White chick is looking much more male. Comb is really showing now and saddle feathers are starting to come in. Here are my last pictures of white chick before his departure. White chick is the leader of the gang of two. Peaches and white chick do everything together and Quinn does her own thing like an awkward third wheel. Her voice has changed while Peaches is still cheeping. I wonder if they can still understand each other.

– September –

Getting settled

The two remaining chicks Quinn and Peaches seem to have forgotten all about their old significant others. They are the new dynamic duo set on causing utmost devastation to my rose bushes.

When I get home in the afternoon I usually let them out of the coop and they run around the patio looking for green things to eat and bugs.

Peaches likes to perch on the back of the metal bench we have next to the house and spy on me through the window. If I’m working at the kitchen table, I’ll see her little head popping up behind all the orchids and plants.

Quinn has been checking out the nest boxes quite a bit lately. She’ll sit in one and then stand up and sit in the other. Then she’ll scratch all the pine shavings out of both boxes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Peaches will stand guard the whole time.

 

– October –

A grub story

I ripped the dregs of my squash plants out of the planter boxes. This year’s squash plants did particularly bad. Between the plants’ poor vigor and the squirrels eating all the squash blossoms before they could set fruit (and after they set fruit), I didn’t get a single edible squash. Thinking it wouldn’t do any harm, I let Quinn and Peaches scratch around in the box.

After watching closely, I saw Peaches eat a short white worm. “What is that?!”, I thought. I had an idea that it could be a grub, even though I wasn’t quite sure what a grub would look like. When I googled it, it was definitely a grub. A quick read of the google results, and I realized that grubs are a huge garden pest. Grabbing a spade, I went over to planter box to see if I could find another one. One spadeful of dirt revealed two grubs! I dug further and realized the bed was infested with grubs. There was one probably every two square inches of dirt!

I grabbed a flower pot and quickly started filling it with grubs.I was pulling up grubs by the handful.

I fed a few to Quinn and then she and Peaches popped back into the coop for the night. They tend to like to go to roost early. Just as the sun starts really setting, they like to call it a day.

An hour later I had 3/4 of the flower pot full of grubs. I offered them to the chicks and they ate greedily for a few seconds and then turned their beaks up and went to sleep.

I saved the rest for them in the flower pot. They ate them for the next few days in the morning and afternoon as treats. Quinn in particular likes to eat the grubs. She will stand in the bed while I dig for grubs and attack like lightning when one appears in the dirt.

The moment we’ve all been waiting for

According to my research, Ameraucauna hens and Cuckoo Marans hens can typically lay eggs rather late – at least 22 weeks, but up to 30!! In addition, chickens need enough daylight to lay eggs. Since it is already October, I wasn’t expecting anything.

The day after the grub discovery, I was cleaning the dropping tray and spotted…. AN EGG! I reached in excitedly and grabbed this egg out of the naked nesting box. It was perfect! The color was light brown with a faint greenish tinge. In the natural light outside, I would say that it does look olive colored, however under inside light it looks like a light brown.

This was October 12, which makes Quinn about 23 weeks old. She’s an early bird for her breed!

Morgan has already left for work, so I put the egg in the refrigerator so he could see it when he got home. The whole day at work I was so eggcited and couldn’t stop telling anyone that would listen that my chicken laid her first egg!

I was so excited to show Morgan the egg after work. His first words, “Oh it’s small”. 🙁 I was feeling a bit hurt that he wasn’t proud of our chicken’s first egg. I tried to convince him that Quinn’s egg was “normal” and the grocery store eggs were actually large mutant chicken eggs. But when I looked it up, Quinn’s egg actually did fall into the category of “small”.

In the US, eggs under 49.6 grams are considered Small. Quinn’s first eggs were about 46 g. Since the first egg, we have been keeping an egg diary where we measure the egg on the scale and take a picture. She has gotten up to 49 g so far. Morgan even kept it up when I was away in Texas for a week!

Pullets do tend to lay smaller eggs and their egg size should increase as they grow bigger. Ameracauna hens should lay about a Medium egg and Cuckoo Marans a Large egg. Maybe Quinn’s eggs will end up somewhere in the middle?

Quinn has the blue egg gene, so when her eggs are cracked open, you can see that the shell is a pretty light blue. Since she also has the gene that puts a brown pigment on top of the egg shell. So her eggs are blue on the inside and brown on the outside. In natural light, this gives the “olive” color.

Compared to the grocery store eggs, we noticed Quinn’s are definitely a darker yolk color. They do taste a bit richer. The egg white also isn’t as watery. I’m not sure if this is the difference between a fresh egg and an old egg or if it is something more specific to her diet. I think I might have become an egg snob now, and the grocery store eggs will soon be not good enough!

Peaches is 7 weeks younger than Quinn. Hopefully she will start laying soon as well! I’m still hoping for an all blue egg, but it will be a bit of a lottery since we don’t know what kind of chickens her parents were. Easter eggers from the hatchery can lay almost any color egg- blue, pink, brown. Fingers crossed for blue eggs!