The Chicks Staying Warm in the Coop

Look how the chicks have grown in just a few weeks!

Queen of the Coop

Betsy and Hazel

Two of our hens have decided they want to be the Queen of the Coop. Betsy and Hazel will fluff their neck feathers and have a staring contest until one breaks eye contact. Occasionally, one will fly and swoop down upon the other's back.

Now, not only do I have to listen to three children bicker and squabble, but two of our chicks have decided to act like my kids. I wonder if timeouts work for chickens?

The Coop's First Snow

Dumpling makes certain that the temperature

is correct in the coop.

It is! Woohoo!!!

The coop and it's inhabitants survived it's first snow

Seriously - Spring in Texas

June and the Pneumonia

There has been a problem at our home.

June, one of our Buff Orpington chicks, contracted pneumonia and it infected her brain. We rushed her to a vet that put her on antibiotics and she seems to be doing much better.

That was the sweet and simple story, now for what really happened...

I'm lying in bed on a lazy spring morning when my eleven-year-old son runs in saying that one of the chicks is being trampled. He says that she won't move at all. This is all being said in a very panicky, sad voice. So, good-bye lazy morning and hello drama.

My son brings the chick into the house to show me. It was one of the most pathetic sights I have seen in my life. She couldn't even hold her head upright.

We googled vets and found one 20 minutes away that dealt with chickens. He told us to be there at 2:00 p.m. since it was first come-first serve.

At 1:30, we packed up June and started driving from Texas to Oklahoma, when we were met with an imposing sight. A semi-truck had exploded right over the Red River and caused damage to an overpass. The police had closed the highway. (No injuries other than to the truck and bridge.) We finally arrived at the vet 1 1/2 hours later.

After looking at June, the vet said that she had pneumonia and it had traveled to her brain, causing an infection there. He flipped her over and proceeded to give her two shots, one in each breast muscle. Then he handed me the syringe and calmly stated that I was to do the same for the next four days.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The highway was still closed when we returned, so my son and I went the back way the locals told us to use. After driving down a road called Peanut Trail, we drove over a ONE-lane bridge - the cars on the other side had to wait for us to cross to get their turn.

We were running so late by then, that we had to go straight to the dog groomer to pick up our three dogs. They really liked the smell of chicken and tried their hardest to find out from where it originated. My son was tilting June's box in his lap and covering it with his body.

Our one hour trip became four hours and our chicken was suffering from pneumonia-induced dementia. The dogs were clambering to find the chicken. I still had to drive and pick up my daughter at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party.

You just have to stop and laugh sometimes. Not at the bird's sickness, but at life. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction!

Now I have to go shoot the bird - with antibiotics, I mean!

The Move to the Coop

The chicks love their new coop

Betsy, Angel, Maizy and Hermione

They have been moved to the coop!

Five days ago, we moved all nine chicks outside to the coop. We limited the amount of space they can play in by putting a divider up in the middle of the room. I now have 100 feet of conduit running across my backyard to protect the extension cord within it. (Wouldn't want to electrocute one of the puppies who decides the cord is a new toy!)

The brooder lamp is on and you can see the glow through the coop's window at night. Everyone seems to love the new coop, especially me!

I spent two days cleaning the dust and feathers out of my son's bathroom and bedroom. The dust was the fuzzy kind that you find when you're moving furniture. Ewwww...

Now, I am taking allergy pills for the reaction I had to the cleaning, but it was worth it! No more smell in my house and the chicks have their own place to live. We are much happier with this living arrangement.

Moving the Chicks - Stage 1

Who knew that so much preparation had to take place before moving nine chickens from a bathtub to a coop?

We have built the coop and, if the rain will ever stop, it will be painted to match the house. (It is very important to have an aesthetically pleasing coop if you can see it from your house!)

Heat is essential for a chick. That wouldn't be a big deal if not for the lack of electricity at the coop site. Now I have a conduit running 100' across my yard with a very long extension cord in it. Eureka! - we have heat.

Today, I am going to the Feed Store. On my list: pine shavings, larger waterer and feeder.

There is one source that I love for information: www.backyard chickens.com. I find out pretty much everything I need from that site and my "Chickens for Dummies" book.

So, I'm off to buy paint for the coop and my list of supplies. It's either get the coop ready or continue cleaning their brooder tank in my son's bathroom.

Chicken coop here we come!

Some Fowl Humor

The other day, my son and I were at his friend's house - the boy who has the three chickens. He lives with his parents, an older sister and a brother, with whom he shares a room.

The three boys were playing video games in the bedroom. The brothers also share their room with the three chickens, named Penny, Vanilla and the infamous Amy.

Suddenly, the boys' mother and I smelled something. The boys had decided to spray cologne all over the room to mask the scent of the chickens.

I started giggling, which turned into full-blown laughter, when the boys' mother yelled, "Stop spraying that stuff. You're going to choke your chickens!"

Now, that is something every boy should be told at least once in his life, don't you think?

We Made the News

Who knew that letting nine chicks live in a bathtub for a few weeks would lead to being dubbed "The Chicken Lady?"

I have a friend who works for our local TV station and they wanted to do a bit on urban chickens. Who does he think of? Me and our brood. Next thing I know I am being interviewed about my son's snowballing school project.

So, here is the link to my fifteen seconds of fame and our beloved chicks. The New Hampshire is Dumpling and the Ameraucana shown is Martha.

Enjoy???

http://www.kten.com/global/story.asp?s=12113040

The Smell

No one prepares you for the smell of chickens. It reminds me of the icky, sweet scent of a newborn's poopy diapers. I can walk in my house and I am surrounded by the cloying smell.

This is probably why everyone else's chickens live outside and not in the bathroom.

The day is drawing closer when the chicks will go home to roost in their newly constructed coop. And what will I be doing that day, other than the happy dance? Sanitizing my son's bathroom!

I have never been so excited about cleaning a bathroom. After bleaching everything in sight, I will open the window and air it out.

As much joy as those nine chicks have brought to our lives, they have also brought enough stench to last a lifetime. So it will be with a happy heart that I welcome them to their new home - 100 feet downwind of mine!

Some Chick Sound Effects

Angel is the white chick in the middle.

Naming the Chickens

Naming most of the chickens was easy, but I had to fight two of them for reasons you will see very soon.

My daughter, who is seven, wanted to name one of the chickens after the sounds they make. "Let's name one Cock, like what the roosters say," she stated proudly.

"That's a boy's name and we only have hens, but that was a good idea," I said.

A few days later my son and his friend, who is the proud owner of three chicks, were naming the new birds. His friend wanted to name one Amy, after his aunt.

Then my son had a brilliant idea, "Name the hen 'Lay Me'. Get it. It's a hen and it lays me eggs."

I told the boys that the aunt would be very disappointed to lose a chicken named in her honor.

Now, when we go out to our soon-to-finished coop and yell the hens' names, you won't hear "Lay me" and "Cock." Thank heavens. Can you imagine what the neighbors would have thought???

A Chicken Poem

My son wrote this two weeks ago when we only had four chickens. Extra bonus - he received a grade of 100 on it. The chickens are paying off already!!!

My

weekend is

going to be

awesome. We are going

down to Justin, Texas to

get some more very young chicks.

And we did: Betsy, Martha, Maizy, June and the beloved Angel.

From Manhattan to Chicks

If you look closely, you can see all nine chickens

Eight years ago, I was pregnant with my third child, living in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. We had a spacious, by New York standards, two-bedroom apartment and were enjoying all the amenities a big city had to offer.

Fast forward eight years...

I am now single with three children, ages 7, 9 and 11. I have moved back to a small town in Texas where I went to high school and where my parents still live. (Help with children is very underrated!)

We live on almost two acres and are animal lovers, so it goes without saying that we are rescuers. We have three dogs, a three-legged cat, three fish that won't die and a neutered guinea pig named Gordon. (We got him from the SPCA and yes, they neuter all animals before releasing them.)

And now we have chickens. Nine chickens. Living in my son's shower. It was a school project that quickly got out of control.

So from Manhattan to chickens in a shower in eight years. And we're loving every minute of it!