#Backyard chickens, #Seattle backyard chickens, #integrating new chickens, #peace in the chicken coop

David Hewlett isn't David Hewlett anymore.  SHE is now " # " (pronounced Hash Tag).  She crawled up on Jimmy's shoulder yesterday and he renamed her.  It stuck.    She is integrating  at a normal pace.  We followed all the advice on the how too's and spent the week letting the others get used to her.
Last night Jimmy built a fire and we sat  around it holding her until it got dark  and then  sneaked her into the coop.  She was pretty stressed that we kept her up so long and  did the chicken stress cheeping even while she was dozing on my lap.  When we put her in the coop  she immediately quieted and went straight to sleep.   I woke up early this morning to listen for  sounds of scuffling and distress and there were none.  Its eerily quiet out there this morning.   After the racket of the last week...... Its BLISS.  Sometime over the next month or so we have to go through it all over again with 2 new  full size layers. The next hens will be young, but not babies, so we wont have to monitor so closely.
"#" is  sweet and has become VERY tame over the last week.  She likes shoulder rides!  Which is fine now but once she is full grown and has full grown chicken poop.... we are thinking ....it might not be so cute.
We are now in the market for 2 or 3 new laying hens. We are not going to get more Rhode Island Reds.  They are amazing layers but, for in the city.... They are just to doggone loud. And they complain about everything.
If anyone in the Seattle area has a couple of 1 year old Java's they would like to sell..... let me know.

#Kisses

#shoulder rides

Escaping chickens, over flowing pond, broken dishwasher, slurping red wine

Ever have one of those days where you spend a good portion of the day screaming  "Oh S&*^!" and then  going into action?  Yep  yesterday was one of those.    About 10:00 AM, I put Elphie in isolation and locked her up tight.  Then I put David Hewlett in with the reds.  I sat on the lawn chair with my coffee watching for a little while just to make sure all was going well  while  talking to Feral Jane on the phone about the coming Yod in 2013,  the truly horrid nature of American healthcare and I admit openly..... gossiping about the neighbors.  All in all  a truly nice morning.  How could it not be..... entertaining chickens , old friend and fair trade coffee.  Eventually I felt guilty for not doing anything so  ,continuing my conversation with  Feral Jane, I wandered indoors to do some housework.  I threw in some laundry and checked on the chickens.  Loaded the dishwasher and....... checked on the chickens.   Separated the bills from the junk mail piled on the table and ........checked on the chickens.   Gathered all the books scattered around the house and put them in the bookshelf and .......checked on the chickens.  Still yammering to  Feral Jane, we both logged onto Redfin so we could look at photos of obviously haunted houses for sale,  all the while watching the chickens out the window.  Then , more guilt and more housework..  I unloaded the dishwasher and  found  everything was covered with dishwasher   smutze (Ya know it....you've seen it).  I had pulled it apart yesterday and cleaned out the trap so  I pulled it apart again and yes..... when I put it back together yesterday, I did not lock the sprayer thingy in place (my bad). I put it back together again and this  time locked it in place.  Then I went to the bedroom and stripped the bed and changed the sheets  (still chattering with Feral Jane).  When the bedroom was done, I realized that I had not checked on the girls for some time. I looked out the window and some how Elphie  had managed to escape the isolation pen  (seriously! How DOES  she do that? It was locked up tight.  Do I have a teleporting hen?).    Anyway I panicked,  screamed  "OH S*&^!" in Feral Janes ear and hung up and ran outside to rescue David Hewlett , only to discover  he/she did not really need rescuing..  Elphie would chase her/him around a little bit if she got too close  but wasn't too aggressive so I decided to watch for a while.  I also decided that while I was watching, I would  add some water to the pond (cuz we still haven't found the leak the heron left).  All was serene for about 10 minutes then David Hewlett got brave and approached the others.  Elphie wasn't going to have any part of it and took off after DH who  took off running and screaming and ran straight into the chain link at the front of the pen, bounced off of it  once and ran back again and.... much to everyones surprise  dove right through the links.  I picked DH up and put  her/him back in the pen.  But DH in that catalytic moment had learned.  And right back out he/she came through the links.  For another 10 minutes we played the game of chase the chicken around the yard.  ...... Until I looked up and saw that I had forgotten about the pond and it was near disaster.  The water was over the top of the fountain!
 I turned off the water and Put DH in the brooder in the garage (cuz I was tired of the excitement and had a mess to clean up).  I spent the next hour siphoning off the pond water one bucket at a time  ( cuz its very nutrient heavy and why waste good fish poop water? ) and adding fertiliser to each bucket and  dumping it in the garden.  After two slow filling buckets, I decide to use the filling time to clean the chicken coop and pen.  This takes about an hour cuz I have to keep stopping and  dump the bucket.  But finally the coop is clean, the pond is down to   normal levels. Every thing in the garden that might need it has been fertilized.  Serenity has been returned to my backyard paradise and the phone rings.  Jimmy is getting off work an hour and half early. He's on his way home.  Another...  "OH S*&^!"  moment.  I'm standing in the yard soaking wet, covered in chicken manure and mud, the house isn't clean,  ALL  the dishes are dirty cuz to get dried dishwasher smutze off dishes you HAVE  to hand wash them. And no prep at all was done for dinner.    Now ...Jimmy is no Ralph Kramden, but I have MY  standards.   I had 20 minutes to  get acceptable.  I threw the dishes back in the dishwasher with a prayer, washed my face and hands and put on dry clothes, brushed the  chicken bedding out of my hair, opened the fridge and pulled out all  the vegetables I could find and two frozen chicken breasts.  Popped the chicken into the microwave to thaw and vacuumed faster than the vacuum could pick up. 3 minutes after that,  Jimmy walked into  a  tidied house with a  wife that looked clean and put together  (even if she wasn't) who was  calmly chopping vegetables  and slurping on a BIG glass of red wine.  The first words he said  when he walked through the door?  "Hi Honey... How was YOUR day?"   I poured myself another glass of wine and said "Just fine  my love.... How was YOUR day?"  (dinner was perfect BTW....  and ready 20  minutes later;  grilled vegetables and chicken  breasts and of course  more red wine).

David hewlett is a genius, Integrating new chickens, Smart Chick

David Hewlett is a  genius.... for a chicken at least.  We spent a couple of days  with the new silkie in a pen just outside of the girls pen and then moved her/his pen into thier pen.  Did that for a day , then we put Elphie in isolation and let David run free with the reds for a while.  Yes, this is a complicated process.  Elphie of course was unhappy with being separated and actually escaped  isolation twice (until we made it impossible and then she got just down- right pissed)  David Hewlett's reaction was interesting.  He/she started mimicking Elphie and mirroring her.    Everything Elphie did... David did.  David was smart enough to run when Elphie got out, but the rest of the time stayed right next to the fence and the oh-so-pissed Elphie. ( Photo's of this interesting  behavior  below).    A few more days of this and we will try putting them together again and see if Elphie attacks.   David needs to grow  a little more and Elphaba needs to calm the bejeebers down.
David mimicking Elphie

Cutest chicken ever