The Backyard Flock

It's been quite a while since I posted last about our backyard flock of chickens.  That's in part because we've had a lot of changes to our pecking order.  In other words, some "bock-bocks" are no longer with us.  And with all of that, I feel there's some explaining in order.  However, for this post I'd like to focus on the positive and save the grim reaper side of things for another post. :-)

First of all our new group of mail order chicks are doing well.  They have grown SO much and are now basically full grown.  (Remember this post from when they were so cute and fluffy?)

In the photos below, the chicks were 7 weeks old and had just moved out from their large box under a heat lamp in the shop.  We partitioned off a section of our shed for them to live in while they grew and matured.  They did pretty well during their first night in a new place, but it was the second night that we discovered they  were young escape artists. 

We were watching TV after the kids had been put to bed.  We hopped up during commercials to look for a munchie in the kitchen when we noticed two chicks walking up to the back door at nearly 10 PM.  (Remember this was late June so it was still light, but starting to get dusk.)  So we rushed outside and found most of them rather quickly.  They hadn't gone too far...except for Muffy.  That's her below.  She's the quiet one.  And with her coloring and the darkness fast setting in.  We were soon using flashlights to search our yard and then a good area of the neighborhood.  We eventually gave up looking for her that night.  I was just sick to my stomach that night wondering what would become of a poor defenseless baby chick.  Dogs, bears, eagles, ravens, plenty of predator hazards.  I got up a few times during the early morning hours and checked the backyard and again a few more times after Shawn had left for work.  Then finally in a defeated "well, I guess I'll at least go check on the big girls and the garden" attitude I tromped out the backyard again.  That's when I heard a distinctive cheep in the distance.  When I heard it again I started moving towards the sound.  I kept hearing more cheeps so I picked up my pace.  Then I finally got a view of what I knew was her--three houses down the street!!!--in a neighbors yard being pounced on by another neighbors puppy.  I scared that mangy thing off her and was really worried I was too late.  But as soon as I picked her up I could tell she didn't have any major injuries.  She was lucky to escape with just two mild cuts and some missing feathers.  I'm pretty sure her attack had started just before I first heard first peep.  So yeah, I save her life.   And that dog is definitely on my bad list. 

But that lost chicken episode seems like so long ago.  Especially since the same one, Muffy, has now spent 2 other nights away from home because she wandered too far, got disoriented, and couldn't be found in the darkness of the night.  Fortunately, each time we've found her unharmed and quite easily compared to her first runaway attempt.  Muffy, like our other young chickens is doing well and has blended with our older chickens.

For one reason or another our little miss has decided that the barred rock chickens are hers. Not sure why, but she really likes them and so do I.  Lately she's gotten really good at catching them to love on them a bit.

But the best and most recent news from our backyard flock is that we had our long awaited first egg from one of the young chickens today!  Wohoo!  We were all so excited.  It's taken 23 weeks of hard work and care to get this egg so we're enjoying it for sure.  Hopefully it is just the beginning of a bounty of fresh eggs in the coming few years.