Grilly Girl and Lil' Grill

Here are two of the chicks from Mama Pickens' brood - Grilly Girl and Lil' Grill, both named after my Youtube friend, Grillmaster33.

Will they hatch?

On Halloween night and the next day, Sophie, our Double Penciled Silver Rock hen went broody. She has been setting on 9 eggs over the past 3 weeks and tomorrow (Nov. 21) the eggs should hatch. Here is a video where you can see the embryo in one of the eggs moving around... Amazing.



Now the bad news - the eggs may have gotten too cold. Here's the scoop. On Tuesday evening I went down to check on the chickens and Sophie got off the nest to see if I had any corn. I gave everyone their treats and left the barn while Sophie was still off the nest. I thought she would have no trouble getting back on the nest in the dark. Well, it got down to about 20 degrees that night and when I went down the next morning, Sophie was setting on the wrong nest box!!!! Her eggs may have gone all night without any heat! I felt them and they were very cool to the touch. I tried putting her back on the nest, but she flew out of it immediately. I wrote the whole brood off as casualties of my ignorance (she could not see in the dark and I should have known that...) but the next time I went down to the barn she was back on the correct nest and hasn't left it since. So... I have no idea if the eggs are still viable, or if she is brooding little frozen babies, but I have decided to let nature takes its own course. If the eggs hatch and the chicks live it will be great, but if they froze that night then it wasn't meant to be...

Once we know if there are any survivors I will post here, hopefully with pictures.

As for Mama Pickens' brood of 6 babies, they are doing great!!!!

Still kickin' with the chickens!

I know it has been forever since I last posted, but here is a quick run down of events...

• We got 3 ducklings, reared them and then gave them back to Phil (our friend and handyman who originally gave them to us.) Suffice it to say that duck poop is GROSS and they take more water than I can provide! We almost ran the well dry trying to keep the baby pool clean and full so they could swim.

• Cleopatra the Egyptian Fayoumi died of an infection - I should get the necropsy report later this week. RIP Cleo. She gave us our first egg.


• The turkeys are huge! We have Turkey Girl (original name, eh?) and Lulu Belle and they give us wonderful eggs. But I would not recommend having Broad Breasted Turkeys unless you plan to eat them because they are genetically designed to have unnaturally large breasts (hence the name) and walking is difficult for them sometimes. I feel a little guilty I won't eat them and I dread having to make a decision that might be humane (killing them to put them out of their misery) but so far that is not the case. I don't expect them to grow old, though.


• Owl Face got to be way too aggressive so we let the neighbors have him. I think they had fried chicken... I asked for some of his beautiful feathers, though, and I try not to think about it too often...


• Our Silkies and Polish are setting now and their eggs are tiny! I love both breeds, but you have to be careful who you put them in with. Certain other breeds will pick on them.


• The 2 Black Australorps went to Phil with the ducks. They are a beautiful breed but they picked on the Polish way too much. Plus Phil wanted a couple good layers and those pullets really fit the bill!


• One our our Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Mrs. Pickens, now known as Mama Pickens, went broody and out of 9 eggs she was brooding 6 of them hatched. They will be 2 weeks old tomorrow, November 3, 2008. That was amazing!


• Sophie, the Double Penciled Silver Rock has gone broody. I put 5 eggs under her on Halloween night and Nov. 1 morning, so in 3 weeks we might have a few more babies. I will try to stay up-to-date on the posts. I don't know how many eggs she is brooding because I have not seen her off the nest yet.

Keep checking back for updates... And here is a picture of Mama Pickens and her babies. I plan to name them this week.