The little chicks are just over a week old and are developing their feathers. They had outgrown their big cardboard box in the porch, where they initially were kept so I could watch them closely. 

Today they went to the new place, the livestock trough brooder. There are two heat lamps in the trough, in case one bulb burns out. There is real hay on the floor of the trough, a big chunk of moist sod, food and some water, though the tray on the chick waterer cracked so tomorrow a new one or two will be in order. The sod is for dirt. They need the soil bacteria to help culture their digestive system and the grit in it to grind the whole organic grain they are being fed. I have ground the grain for the first week and will do so for a bit longer, but they are starting to pick at the whole grains too. 

I observe the little chicks cared for by the mother hens. The day they are hatched she calls them outside and they jump, walk, hop and manage to get to where she wants them to be, sometimes with a great deal of effort, but they do get there, nonetheless. They scratch the dirt, pick up the odd piece of grain and bits of grass and the chicks are exposed to wind, sun, rain and even snow recently. When they are cold, they peep loudly and mother hen warms them until they are calm. She warms them less and less as they develop their feathers and can begin to regulate their own temperature better. 

I have had great success with the livestock trough brooder.This old trough was free because it has rusted through in two places. I posted an ad looking for one and the gent was pleased to have it gone, as it was no longer useful to him for his cows. It is large. I have a smaller one too, and this year it is set up beside the bigger one, for goslings and ducklings when they hatch in the mom's nests. I cannot allow them to free range with their parents because the ravens eat them. There are three geese on about 30 eggs. 

After the chicks are out of the brooder, they go into a hoop coop with a heat lamp still in case of a chill. The hoop coop is 8 x 10 feet to provide ample growing room and it is movable, but the chicks all have to be caught and caged for moving. The geese and ducklings follow a similar path. 

These chicks are top of the line Ameraucanas, Cream legbars (and both those breeds lay blue eggs) and there are 3 white Chanteclers too. I am going to mix them with my existing chickens of those breeds, plus the Partridge Chanteclers I already have.  My aim is to create a wonderful, hardy, foraging flock that will lay eggs and raise chicks from year to year. I think this will be my last influx of new chicks for some time and from now on, just a new rooster will likely be added. 

And to think, upon moving here, I suffered a true bird phobia and was deathly afraid of chicks and chickens, well, all birds to be exact. It took 3 years to fight that phobia and I can finally say, it is gone. Now...back to check on the chicks. 

Some new additions for the Fat Ewe Farm have arrived. They are true Ameraucanas, Cream legbars and 3 white Chantelcers. Ameraucana chickens are my favourite breed. They are hardy, forage well, eat less than many breeds, lay consistently, but not through the winter and have pretty blue eggs. They are not overly friendly, but also not overly flighty. I can easily walk amongst them without causing a panic situation and they do not mind if I enter the coop. They simply look up as if to say, "Oh, it's only you!" and go back to doing whatever they were doing. 

These Ameraucanas originate from two different lines in Ontario and one from southern Alberta.  I am not interested in showing chickens, but I do prefer true breeds to start with, then I mix them up. The best breed so far are the Chantacaunas, or Chantecler and Ameraucana crosses. The birds are larger than Ameraucanas, better setters and brooder and better foragers than the Chanteclers, plus are very winter hardy. 

The cream legbar is a sort of leghorn chicken and the males and females look different at hatching, so they can be sexed right from the start. Unfortunately, I have 7 roosters and only 5 hens then. The chickens lay blue eggs very similar to the Ameraucana in colour, but they are better layers. So to increase the number of eggs per year and hopefully through winter I thought I would bring this breed into the flock. For my set up, which is an insulated coop without additional heat or light in the winter, the birds need to be hardy. They are fed and watered outside, not matter the weather and they do have a larger hoop shelter, which I call the day spa, to hang out in. It has a south facing low window where the chickens congregate to absorb some vitamin d and the warmth of the sun. 

In the fall I plan to sell, if I can, a bunch of chickens. These new additions should be grown up by then and I can decide which ones to keep and which ones to sell. The problem is that people do not want to bother with winter chickens around here, so fall sales are pretty much non existent. I would hate to butcher them, especially since they already cost a pretty penny for these pure lines, so may have to wait until spring. But the cost of organic grain is currently 40 cents a pound and feeding chickens that I plan to sell may mean they won't even bring enough money to pay for their winter keep. 

Tonight the babies are in the porch in a rather small container with a heat lamp for observation. I ran the regular feed of wheat, peas, flax and barley through the grinder and they are gobbling it up. Tomorrow they will go into the large old livestock trough outside with a second heat lamp. There is an old door covering the trough and they can see the sun. In warm weather I remove the door and put a wire over the trough to prevent cats and other birds (ravens, owls) from taking the babies. Then they can feel the wind on their faces and the sun on their backs, and when they feel cold, run under the heat lamp to warm up, just as they would with their mammas. 

I have observed the mother hens with their newly hatched chicks often. They are not in a building. The chicks run after the mothers, over straw and hay, through mud and on uneven ground. The wind blows their little downy feathers and the sunshine and rain falls on their backs. I do not agree with brooding chicks in buildings where there is no sunshine. Vitamin D is necessary for birds as it is for humans. Coddled birds that do not get fresh air, get respiratory problems. Outdoor chicks raised with their mothers seldom get anything. So my set up mimics natural chick rearing as much as possible. When they are big enough to go into a hoop coop, they will grow up there, protected from the owls and ravens, but still very much outside. They get fresh green grass picked twice daily and their organic feed too. 

So, welcome the newest little ones to the farm please if you will. And stay tuned to watch them grow with posts from time to time. Thanks for being with us. 

There is not much to report on with the chickens. They just hang around all day  in the spa and then move to the coop for the night. They have not really started going out of their winter pen, since there is nothing to forage, and unlike the ducks and geese, they are not drawn to the water puddles from the melting snow. They have started to lay eggs, with between 6 and 10 coming daily now. The young pullets have started to lay as well, but they choose the weirdest places, like the rabbit hutch or manger in the barn. They do not go in the coop for the night. Luckily for them, the winter was mild and they were able to stay in the shelter beside the coop without too much problem. No matter how many times I threw them in the coop and locked the door they returned to the shelter instead. Finally I gave up, except for the three who roosted outside in the pine tree. One perished that very cold night we had because I could not find him, but I did catch the other two and locked them in a little cage so they could not leave in the morning. Then they returned to the coop. 

The day spa is a double size hoop shelter with a window facing south. That window makes all the difference. They bask in the rays of the sun while being sheltered from the snow and wind. When winter was here in full force, the ducks and geese in the spa raised the temperature considerably as well. The ducks and geese slept there in the winter, out of the elements. At one point when we got quite a bit of snow, the roof began to sway and I had to knock all the snow from it and prop it up inside, just in case. 

These hens are 4-5 years old, the purebreds, and the cross breds are 1 to 2 years old. I will have most of them butchered at the end of the summer because I have new stock ordered. New Chanteclers, Ameraucanas and Cream Legbars will be hatched from eggs coming up from Calgary in April. Then they will be brooded in the granary out back of the little farmhouse, until they are old enough to join the chickens in the coop. Some will be sold too. Cream legbars lay sky blue eggs, Ameraucanas lay blue green eggs and white Chanteclers lay light brown eggs. The Partridge Chanteclers will likely be kept on, but I have not found a rooster in that breed yet, so they will marry the Ameraucana and the Chantecler roo.

Chickens provide bug control here and forage through the composting manure piles in the barn yard. The breeds are excellent foragers. In the summer, they are fed at the end of the day and must forage all day long. ON good days they eat very little grain because they are full of bugs and grass, the way it should be. Though the birds are tough when they are butchered, they are incredibly tasty and make the finest soups. I thank the chickens for their work and their eggs. I do appreciate them very much, even though they are not my favourite critters on the farm. They have a job to perform and they do it well. Today they were enjoying the sun at the spa, just like ladies do everywhere, clucking away to the other girls! 

It was with a heavy heart I found this young pullet half eaten and half frozen at noon today. She was fine this morning, but the ravens were around all day. They are hungry when the snow comes and this little girl was only 3 months old. She was the last chick hatched by the Silkie hen, who would not quit sitting all summer. The Silkie is a terrible mother though, so I gave her to a broody Partridge Chantecler and she raised her as her own. I worried about the baby at first because it was already October when she was hatched and it started to get cold, but the mamma hen was excellent in calling her to get warm under her snuggly breast of fluffy feathers and in looking after her. She did not perch, but slept on the ground keeping the little one warm all night long. 

Jade,the livestock guardian dog,  was mighty upset this morning. She had been chasing the ravens for some time. She and Robbie are the only ones who seem to understand that those birds are not welcome, while the other ones who fly around here, are. The chick's breast was pecked open and her innards were barred and bloody. Even if she could have recovered, and chickens are remarkable at recovering from terrible injuries, her left foot was already frozen solid. She was a purebred Ameraucana and I loved her very much. I picked her up frequently and after she squawked in protest, she settled into my arms and was quiet and allowed me to stroke her pretty feathers. I could not let her suffer. There was no one else around and it was up to me to put her out of her misery. I cried as I did and thanked her for her life and told her I was so sorry for not better protecting her. I was. That was the second chick I have ever done away with in my life. It is very hard. 

The ravens need to be reduced in number. There were 3 when I moved here 5 years ago. Now there are at least a dozen if not 18. They are hard to keep track of though. At one time they were protected, but their numbers have rapidly increased and they have become pests in some areas, similar to crows. Only these ravens eat babies at the Fat Ewe Farm. This is the third one they have demolished. No, wait, I do not know how many potbelly piglets there were , but only one was left and the ravens got the rest. They also got one lamb as it was being born. 

I am going to ask some hunters to come and try to shoot a few of the ravens. They are incredibly intelligent birds and if they know there is danger, they will not come around. At least that is the concept. I do not want to lose any more babies either, nor do I want the ravens to die, but what does a farmer do? It is truly up to me to protect my livestock. What would you do?

This little chick had gotten himself left behind when Mamma hen retreated to her nest area. Only I did not know where she was, so I could not help him. I warmed him up first, because I found him at the wood pile and he had been peeping for some time. Then I set him down near the chicken coop, hoping he would know the way, but he is too young. I thought perhaps the peeps would bring the mother out, but she had more chicks to tend to. So, I watched and waited, then picked him up and warmed him in my hands again. 
I set him down near another hen with chicks about a week older. She had no problem accepting him to her brood, but he was not having it. He stayed a while then peeped for his own mother. 
It was just by chance that she was out near the hen house with the newly hatched little ones and when I placed him near her, he ran as fast as those little legs would carry him. Home at last. I watched her for a while. It was raining, a nice gentle rain, but being wet is not so good for the babies at such a young age because they cannot regulate their own temperature until later. So, she took them back to where she hatched them, under the coop! At least I know where she is in case he gets himself lost again. 

The space under the coop needs to be completely blocked off when the chicks are a little older to prevent them from returning there or when mother hen no longer broods them, they will return and try to stay there for the winter. That happened to some Japanese bantams that a hen hatched and no matter how many times I caught them and locked them in the coop, they returned to the place they were hatched, that is until I made it so they could not get back there. 

There are 5 mother hens with various numbers of chicks from 1 to 9. The one with 1 did not hatch that baby. She was brooding in the hen house nest boxes and I snuck an egg that was about to hatch from an abandoned nest underneath her. That made her very happy and the chick had a chance for a life. He was a slow hatcher and his mother did not wait for him. This little chick is going to be very pretty or handsome. It is Ameraucana, maybe even purebred, but the colour is not usual. We will wait and see I guess. 

Welcome to the Fat Ewe Farm little one. Isn't the Creator amazing to think of such a beautiful little thing coming from a shell warmed by the heat of his mother? 

These girls are bonded because they both have the same problem. They have no feet. During the winter, for some reason, their feet froze solid. I should have put them down then, but didn't. I can only imagine the pain and suffering they have had to endure as the feet thawed then fell off at the ankle. One is a peg leg for sure and the other has some of her foot on one leg and nothing on the other. I am not sure why that happened either. If they perched on the two by four in the coop, any of the coops, and then laid their bellies over their feet to cover them, the feet should not have frozen. What must have happened, is that for some reason they slept on the ground one night. There is a lot of straw bedding in their coop, over a foot, but that is not adequate to keep their feet from freezing if they do not perch. 

So, as they convalesed, they became friends through a common problem. they stay together now, not going far from the coop. They do not lay eggs and cannot scratch the ground for bugs and worms. They eat the feed provided and try to hide from the roosters, but whatever they do and wherever they are, they are together. 

This photo was taken as they were getting ready to sleep and it was so endearing to see the blue hen cuddling her friend to keep her warm, even though it is a warm night. I am so sorry these girls had to suffer. They do not have much life now and they are rather thin, barely susisting really. That is no life for the beautiful Ameraucana hens and they will be killed as a mercy offering for them. Yet, I cannot help thinking that maybe they would rather cling to life, even though they are different than the other hens and cannot function as chickens anymore. Maybe, life is still preferable? 

Do you think so? 

Ok, this is a job that everyone hates, me included. The trick was to steel my resolve to get it done because those poor chickens were suffering. The amonia smell was so strong my eyes were burning the entire time I was cleaning the coop and that was outdoors in the fresh air, with the coop door and the window wide open. The smell inside, once the coop floor thawed, was unbearable. There are two more coops to clean, oh joy.

In the first photo you can see the deep bedding as I forked it away, and in the back it was over two feet. Since the Muscovy ducks moved in, the floor was wet and soupy. The chicken droppings were dry in comparison and with enough vegetative matter, that is straw, hay and shavings, there was no smell. Only when the floor thawed and the thick bedding began to compost in earnest did the amonia come through. Had it just been the chickens, it is not nearly so back. Fortunately, the weather is warm this March and spring has arrived early for this neck of the woods, so the cleaning took place a month before usual. 

In the last picture you can see the clean coop. There are rubber mats on the floor sprinkled with diatomaceous earth, which is supposed to keep mites and lice at bay. It is made of ground fossil shell and under a microscope looks like broken glass. For tiny creatures, it acts that way too, and slices their under bellies open, or so the theory goes. The nest boxes were turned and cleaned out completely as well. The girls were curious the moment they could get themselves into one and had to go in and out of several compartments to find their favourite. 

One good thing about cleaning a coop is when it is finished. Now, only two more to go. 

I am quite sure the Ameraucana hen was thinking she was done for. At the back of the nest baskets in this coop, there is a little door to stick my hand through from the outside to get the eggs. The door to this coop is very small and difficult for an adult to go through. Basically one has to bend in half like a pretzel and in insulated coveralls and big boots, it is seemingly not possible. 

There was the last check to be done on the animals before going in from the chores.The sheep were fine, the goats were busy eating as they always are, unless they are sleeping. The chickens seemed to be OK too. I looked in the nest boxes for eggs, for they would be frozen for sure by morning. I almost missed the little hen. She was stuck behind the wire and behind the plywood, but on the inside of the two tarps. There were several options to retrieve her. One was to cut the wire, which would weaken the coop, even if it was well repaired. Another was to get to her from the ouside, but the tarps were frozen to the ground. Well, they were not entirely frozen and a person with a long arm might be able to reach her from the outside in the small opening that was still there. 

I could not get at her. My son is 6'2" with very long arms. It was no trouble for him to open the tarp a little more and reach in to grap a leg, lifting her off the plywood so her wing would not be injured, and pull her out. Thank goodness. The little hen would have frozen in that position over night with our frigid temperatures. Tonight it is minus 21 with a wind chill. As long as the chickens are crowded together on the perches, they remain warm enough, but a single hen on her own in this position would have been chilled to the core and her feet would have frozen. 

The hen in front of her is a Sumatra. She is wondering what the heck is going on and likely is glad it is not her stuck in that position. Thanks to my son for helping rescue the little Ameraucana. She was happy to be free and had a big drink of water and made quite a fuss to the other chickens, telling her tales. Poor girl. 

Something is killing my birds. I was gloating for a while because the dogs do such a great job of keeping any predators away, that there had been no losses at all, other than illness or accident. Then, without warning, something killed a Muscovy duck and ate her neck only. That predator did not come back the next day, or if it did, it took its prey away. The next day and every day thereafter, it has come back and killed and eaten the neck of mostly ducks, probably because they are on the ground and very easy to catch compared to chickens, but it also has gotten two chickens. I have set a trap and reset it too, but I do not actually know what I am trying to catch. 

Predators that eat the neck only are Great Horned owls, mink and sometimes weasels, though they usually prefer to puncture the throat and suck the blood of not just one, but several animals at a time. Skunks and racoons also may be the culprits, but the larger the animals, the less likely it is that they would penetrate the defense the dogs offer. They are formidable when working in their pack. 

I have a friend with a wildlife camera who offered to set it up for me, but he has not yet shown up. Another friend offered to set traps, other than my live trap that I have already set, and he also has not shown. Good intentions, but no follow through as of yet does not help me. In the meantime, a dozen birds hare gone, or rather the necks of the birds are gone and the rest is in tact, but of course dead, dead dead. 

What to do? I will call my friend with the camera again and try to get that set up so I know at least what it is and what time to expect it. The camera has a clock that shows exactly what time the motion is detected and the filming starts. That tool would be excellent, but if he is too busy now to help, I will just go and buy one, as I am sure it would come in beneficial in the future too. My poor little birdies. I feel so sorry for them being terrorized and eaten, blood spilled and bodies munched right before their eyes. Tonight I locked them in the coops. That could be good or bad. If it is a weasel, they can fit through very tiny openings and since the birds have no escape being locked in, the weasel could kill many. If it is a larger predator, he will have to bust through wire to get in and that might cause commotion enough to bring the dogs, and I did leave the pen gate wide open so they can move easily without having to jump in. No fence can keep them out if they want to go in. They jump. Good dogs. Now, let's get that predator so we can relax again. 

There were two very late hatches, just before the snow. I was worried that the little ones would not survive, but by the time it got truly cold, they had their feathers and a better chance of survival. 

The hen perched for self preservation. If the chickens do not roost for the night, they run the risk of their toes and feet freezing. But, because she perched, one of the little ones, who did not understand how to get up on the perch, though there is a ladder, froze her feet solid and she had to be put down. Four of the babies have suvived and thrived. The mother is a bantam cross with quite a few breeds in her background, the dominant head tuft derived from a Silkie. The eggs were fertilized by the Ameraucana rooster and the result is that the babies all have various degrees of the mufffy face. The light buff pullet is a result of the Japanese Bantam influence a generation ago. The Ameraucana rooster was a splash, that is black and white feathers as though some one had spashed him with paint. He is, no was, a big rooster who went into the soup pot and was replaced with new blood from a different line far away. 

What I love about the chickens now, is that the way they will turn out is not predicatable. There are enough different colours and featherings in their backgrounds that almost anything is possible. I have kept those that were exceptionaly foragers and the hens that were broody and raised their own clutch of babies, saving me the incubation and brooding troubles. This self perpetuating flock, then serves the farm with meat and eggs and continually renews itself, as in the old days. I should not need to introduce new birds except the roosters, to keep the blood lines fresh. The birds are also excellent flyers and can easily fly up to the top of the elm tree which is at least 20 feet high. That is a desired trait for free range birds who need to escape from predators, however, there are so many livestock guardians that protect the entire farm, that predators have not been seen for several years. 

I am looking forward to the bringing back of the light and the eggs that the birds will produce. Thank you little birdies for your work at The Fat Ewe Farm and for your lives. You are beautiful!