Okay, i began with six chickens, or what i thought would be six chickens. iris turned out to be more of an ira, which was fine until he hit his homicidal streak, began ripping out all the chickens feathers, beating them daily if they did not cooperate with his advances, and engaged me in a fight to the death while trying to give them water after about six weeks of trying to redirect his behavior. So then there were five chickens. Buttercup passed of a mosquito born illness, and then there were 4 chickens. Petunia decided she was broody and i felt sorry that i’d done away with the rooster and none of them would ever be moms. So i went down the road to the feed store and picked up a day old chick: ellis. I stuck her under Petunia with all the eggs she was sitting on. Instead of tricking her into thinking one of the eggs hatched i succeeded in convincing her they were under attack and the intruder: a scrawny day old chick, had to be dealt with accordingly. All the hens, including Petunia commenced to pecking the poor chick to death. She hid underneath Petunia but instead of affording her shelter from the others she lifted up off the eggs and pecked the chick between her legs. They attempted to rip its wings off and peck its head so i quickly intervened seeing they were not going to calm down and Petunia had no motherly instincts kicking in here. To leave Ellis would have meant certain death for the poor chick. In dismay i realized that for the next six months i would be raising a chicken in the house. Sigh. Well, ellis was lonely and i didnt want to make another homicidal crazy chick so i went back to the feed store and got her a friend: oakley. So Ellis and Oakley grew up in the house and then joined the flock outside. Im skipping a bit where they tried to go live with another flock for a bit but they pecked and repecked a hole in ellis’s head until she was crazy, missing half her scalp, and presenting like a tbi patient and then they came back to live with me and i doctored ellis’ head until the skin grew together but she is permanently bald on one side of her head and her personality never recovered as she’s super neurotic and afraid of anything that moves. But, she lays good eggs and i created this monster by giving her away when she was a sweet little chick, and so she has a permanent home here. I just have to work a little harder to catch her when its time to go inside in the face of winter storms. If you want the details on all that there’s an earlier post titled “Ellis and Oakley” that talks more about them. The point is, there were six chickens again. Then Petunia developed ascites and i had to lay her to rest beneath the ground on our property. Now there were five chickens again. This was right in the middle of the egg shortage where the super market egg prices had sky rocketed. Everyone wanted to know if i had eggs for them. Well, i have a handful of six friends that i keep on rotation to receive eggs but they can only receive them as fast as the chickens can lay them. I was becoming increasingly frustrated with my friends’ pestering about whether i had free eggs for them yet. The chickens were now three years old and with the record hot and dry temperatures and then a molt, the chickens were just not producing many eggs. I gave out what i had in the order that they were arranged on the revolving chart taped to the fridge. I realized that i probably needed a few more chickens. However, the feed store in my small town had closed and it was the only one i knew of that ordered chicks year round. Chick season was over. I would have to order them online unless i wanted to wait for some feed stores to get an autumn batch and fuss with a heat lamp during power outages and winter storms. No, i needed them independent of a heat lamp by winter. I would have to order now, in summer, in texas. They would be living exclusively in the house because 113 degree temps would kill them. Originally i was after chocolate orpingtons. The feed store had ordered some nearly six months before they closed and they looked amazing with rich brilliant chocolate feathers and such a sheen to them. I looked online but the breed variation was rare to be found in the united states. The one chap that actually sold them would only sell a straight run. You had to take the rooster chicks as well. I was having none of that. No roosters. Its a strict policy here, enacted after the great battle to the death with ira way back when. So i gave up on the idea of chocolate chickens. I would have to breed them myself or live in the UK if i wanted only hen chicks for the flock. I turned to the run of the mill buff orpington thinking surely someone will sell me sexed chicks and i can get all female buff orpingtons. I was right. However, i had no need for the obligatory 21 chicks i would be required to buy in order to get one. I interviewed all my friends and coworkers thinking that maybe someone would want to go in with me on the baby chickens…i could keep some, they could take the rest…. There were a few that considered the idea but they just never did make a habitat or pull the trigger on the thing and as many know, im a doer, not a talker. So, unless i see action, im going ahead without you and im going to assume you just cant get yourself together to participate. I heard a lot of “ill talk to my husband and see if he’s willing to get the old chicken setup up and running” but when i inquired the answer was that she hadnt found the right time to bring it up yet. I found a company that had a six chicken minimum. You had to pay a fee for being able to have only six chicks sent that made it cost the same as buying 21 chickens, but at this point that was less of a problem than what the heck to do with 21 chickens in a 384 square foot one room house that already contained furniture, a human, and two dogs. So, i paid the fee, put them in the basket, and bought 6 newly hatched female buff orpington chicks. I sent them to my coworker’s house in fredericksburg, knowing that they would hold them at the post office. That way, i could get them from the post office, pop them in the metal bathtub with a heat lamp, and go back to work. I would take them home with me at the end of my shift. That made more sense than driving an hour each way to take them home and come back.
So, preparations began. I dusted off the stock tank in the shed and placed it in the bathroom. I fashioned a lid from wood and wire panels. I dumped wood shavings in. I dug out the chick feeder and chick waterer. I went to the feed store in fredericksburg and bought chick crumbles. Then i placed my bathtub, a heat lamp, a light bulb, wood shavings, chick crumbles, a feeder and waterer, a wire panel lid, and some heavy items to hold it down in the trunk of my car. In theory, this could work.
Just two days later i got the call right around dawn that my baby chickens had been overnighted from up north and they were waiting at the post office to be picked up. I had to wait two hours for the post office to open and then i set out to get them. When i got there a line stretched towards the door. I heard my baby chickens peeping and i exclaimed, “oh i hear them!” Excitedly. It was then that the people in front of me let me cut the line because they wanted to see the baby chickens. I stepped forwards and told the lady i had gotten a call that my little chickens had arrived. She said, “Oh its you! They’ve been peeping all morning since they arrived. Lively little things.” She disappeared and came back with a little box. On the side of it was a tag that said “delta cargo”. I chuckled to myself. The baby chickens were a day old and they had already ridden in an airplane. I wondered if the engines had been loud. Poor little chicks. They came into the world and straight away went in a box and on an airplane. I could hear them peeping. I knew that they were cold. After letting everyone in the post office have a brief look in the box through one of the ventilation holes i hurried them back to work where i set up the bathtub in an unused room, plugged in the heat lamp, and placed the lid on.
I was surprised to find that all the chickens had survived! No casualties. The hatchery i chose sure did send some lively baby chickens. I was excited about it as id never had chicks this lively. I opened the box all the way and lifted each chick out and into the bathtub. I gave each one a little cuddle before i set it down but a very brief one at that as i knew they would need the heat lamp to survive at this stage in the air conditioner. I knew i wasnt supposed to have live barnyard animals in the building but they were only staying for half a day, and i did sneak some retired farmers in to see them because hey, they’re farmers and they loved every second of our secretive field trip that ended in them holding tiny baby chicks.
At the end of my shift my coworkers each had a look at the baby chickens and then i elected one to baby sit the now ripped box while i loaded the tub and all its contents as well as my things in the car. He and his patient were faithful babysitters of the new fluff balls and they were still in the box when i returned. I placed the box on the front passenger seat and buckled it in. Then i held the lid on with my right hand while i made the hour long drive home. I was relieved to finally get them in the stock tank with the heat lamp in the bathroom at home. Traveling with day old anythings is stressful because they cant regulate their own body temperature and they are quite fragile at that stage.
Though all the chicks were lively, alert, and feisty, two of them soon developed poop plugs. Their runny poos had stuck to their baby fluff on their rear ends and developed a little barrier that didnt allow further poops to be excreted properly. Instead, they splattered and got smeared in, building the poop wad bigger in size and area covered. I told myself i knew how to deal with this with warm water and tweezers but they were awful young to get wet and i thought perhaps it was God’s way of fixing the problem i now had which was that 11 chickens were not going to fit in that tiny pen. I told myself i would not intervene with the two poopy chickens and i would just let nature take its course and then bury them in the yard.
As you can imagine, i did not cuddle these chicks as much as the others, because they always had fresh runny poop smeared all over the back end of them. I more just picked them up and held them dangling over the stock tank and stroked their heads with my finger. It was a very shallow cuddle and as a result, these chicks did not become attached to me or see me as mother. They became aggressive and fearful and attempted to peck me often. The other four were cuddled regularly when i watched tv or got ready for bed. They were much more socialized and bonded to me.
The chicks’ tiny little claws left scratches all over my skin but that was just part of the process of socializing young chicks.
Because the new chicks had begun life by spending the day at work following their delta airplane ride, most of my patients asked daily how they were doing and followed along with their growth by viewing pictures and videos on my phone.
Well, as time went on, the chicks with the poopy bottoms did not perish. In fact, they very cleverly picked at the poos immediately after having them until there was a hole in the poo wall through which they continued to have runny poos each time. The poo wad on the back of each of them got bigger and bigger and still they found a way to peck a hole in the middle each time. It was when they began to get feather tubes that they would peck until they unfurled that i snapped. I knew i could get rid of the poo for them. I knew i had it within my capabilities and i felt it was cruel not to, especially when they had such a will to live. So i filled the sink with near hot water, grabbed a chick, and used my fingers to gently hold the poo wad in the heated water and then pick at the little bits until they softened and crumbled or slid off of the feathers/fluff. Some pieces were stubborn and had to be squished and rolled between the fingers to soften in the water before i could pull them off. The chick panicked of course. I had to work slowly so as not to hurt the chicken or rush the effects of the heated water but quickly because the chick would work itself into a stressful state. I used my fingers because i didnt want to risk pinching the skin and tearing anything with the tweezers. I would just wash hands very well afterwards. When i was finished with the first chick i dried its back end and kept it in the bathtub near the heater for a bit. I didnt want its sisters picking at the wet thinned fluff on its rear. Then i put the second chick through the same process. An hour and a half later both chicks were relieved of their poop wads and looking normal. After they had dried completely i put them back into the stock tank with their sisters and from that moment on they looked like and developed as normal chicks. However, their undersocialization never resolved itself.
The damage was done. The two chicks that had begun with poop wads on their bums were not bonded to me in the slightest and they were fearful of everything. In a fight or flight situation, they chose fight. This became evident once they got older and i let them outside next to the older chickens. These two began posturing and poofing their feathers out against Daisy and Rosie in the adjacent pen. They would squawk and flap at them but these two chickens never backed down. I was afraid to put them in the pen with tiny Daisy and crooked foot Rosie. These chickens were growing and would outweigh Daisy when all was said and done. She was my smallest chicken. Rosie never was really coordinated with her crooked feet. I was worried these two would win and then my flock would be led by chickens who did not view me as mom and werent bonded to me in any way.
I picked names for the baby chickens but it took a while before i could tell who was who consistently. Olive was the smallest one. She was very docile and my favorite. Lucy was originally the second most docile. She is a bit bigger than olive but also loves her cuddles. Georgie began as an absolute terror and the loudest chicken in the history of mankind. She’s still very vocal but she is a sucker for a good cuddle and loves to stretch her neck out over your shoulder and rest with her eyes closed as you pet her head and carry her around like a baby. She is the biggest of the little chickens and sooooo loud, but she is a big softie as it turns out. Sophie is a bit too feisty and is tolerant of cuddles rather than fond of them. She tolerates me but she does seem keen on bowing down to Daisy and Rosie in the adjacent pen. She’s a bit of a standoffish girl but i dont really give her a choice when it comes to socialization so she rolls her eyes and tolerates me until there is either food or freedom. Francis and Emma were the chickens who originally had poopy butts.
I had to wait for September before there were some hours of the day on the weekends where i could place the pullets outside in the chicken tractor next to the adult pen so they could get a look at each other and begin to socialize. Initially the pullets were more interested in the chickens than vice versa. The pullets had never seen birds other than themselves and were quite fascinated. The adult chickens just rolled their eyes, seemingly saying, “This again.” I had done this with Ellis and Oakley, forcing them to see and eventually accept two more chickens into their flock. Now i had six of them. The adult chickens were not amused. They spent a minimal amount of time investigating them from the edge of their pen and then went back to scratching for food. Every weekend I put them outside for as long as the weather would permit and i had them stare at each other. So hopefully one day when i put them in the adult pen they wont fight to the death.
I tried to put them in the chicken tractor in the evenings when i came home from work but the truth of the matter was, even after nightfall it was still 90 degrees. It was just too hot. In September i could put them outside between 7 am and 9 or 10 am. I had to wait until October to get full days where the high was 90 degrees or below. Then i would leave them outside for a whole Saturday and just put the dogs out to watch them and alert me if there was any trouble. If there was one thing Sili and Cashew were good at, it was being a doorbell. They always let me know when someone new had arrived: critter or otherwise. Since my house is not brick and mortar and the animal pens are right near it, its safe to say i dont have to strain to hear anything going on out there.
Originally i began with six baby chickens but after a while it just became unavoidable that the pen was not big enough for eleven chickens, i didnt want to buy feed for eleven chickens, i didnt have enough table scraps for eleven chickens to get an equal share, and i did not have enough space for eleven chickens to hang out in the house during winter storms. It was easy to decide who had to go. The two that never bonded to me: Francis and Emma…they would have to go. I would keep the docile 4 who seemed to be showing submissive behaviors towards the adult chickens rather than challenging them.
I placed an add for two bossy 3 month old chickens that would be good layers but not good pets on the chicken page for Gillespie County. A man in Bandera responded saying he’d take them and we arranged to meet the following Saturday. In the ad i was very specific that i was getting rid of them because they were not super friendly and were not bowing down to the older chickens. I said they’d be good for someone who had younger pullets they could be the boss of, someone who had a flock of four or five and recently lost a couple to a predator and was looking for replacements for a very small flock situation, or someone who had a setup but no chickens and just wanted some eggs for breakfast. Optionally, one could pair them with a rooster and get more chicks from them when they came of age.
Of course, the man just saw a pretty picture of chickens and skimmed what i had written. He assumed the two i was rehoming were the ones being picked on and i was just choosing to rehome some super sweet friendly socialized chickens. I gave him a minute to decide if he still wanted them. I was honest about what they were from start to finish. I told him, “they’ll be good layers but they arent going to be real friendly pets.” I had a line of four other people waiting if he should choose to say no. He decided to take them and i bid him farewell. I then bought supplies at the Bandera feed store and headed back to clean the pen of the pullets i was keeping.
Once the two bosses were rehomed the whole mood of the tiny indoor flock changed. Sophie, Georgie, Olive, and Lucy became more relaxed, had more room to stretch out, and were more cuddly when i handled them. It was the right decision for this homestead. We cant sustain 11 chickens in that little pen, and i rely on the fact that the chickens are bonded to me to keep control over what goes on with the flock. Ellis and Oakley are already feral. To have more feral chickens is to play with fire when i need them to be dusted for fleas or go in the house prior to an ice storm. If two of them are wild they are the outcasts. If half of them are wild, you’ve lost control of the thing. Whenever Ellis goes nuts or Oakley pecks me Daisy puts them in line immediately and Rosie is there to back her up should they give any trouble. To keep this dynamic, i have to keep Daisy and Rosie on top of the social hierarchy. These four chickens coming in to the group shouldn’t give them much trouble in terms of assuming their place at the bottom of the totem pole in December. Im hoping Georgie will be a great addition to the flock in terms of a predator deterrent. She is so unbelievably loud it hurts my ears just to think about hearing her. Her regular chicken noise is like that of a banshee. It sounds like screaming but like if it was hooked up to concert level speakers and blasted throughout the wilderness. With any luck, a predator will take one listen and run away in horror.
Because i dont have two pens, i have no way to separate the pullets’ feed from the chickens’ feed. If i give the pullets calcium before they are laying eggs i will just ruin their kidneys. So, i have to keep them separate until they are around 6 months old. That means my Christmas present will be the young chickens moving outside and me getting my bathroom back. Its not a real common way to do things but where i live there are a lot of predators. There are gangs of 40 raccoons that roam the street together on trash day. There are hawks. There is a fox den on my property. There are possums. There are coyotes that visit the yard multiple times a week. You dont leave something where a critter can get into the enclosure or you wont have it, and furthermore you will teach the predators that your infrastructure can be tampered with if they just work at it. I invest a lot of time and effort into hand raising chickens which involves cuddling, nuzzling, and petting them all the while they are growing up. To lose one to a predator would mean having to start all over with more, and they are a lot of work to get socialized like puppies. With animals you will get out of them what you put into them. That is a pretty solid rule. So, you dont invest 3 months of care and daily socialization into some beings and just leave them outside in a pen that could be dug under, torn apart, or lifted up. To recreate the pen i have now i’d need over $5,000 and a lot of time, as well as a car load of rocks and a pickaxe. I prefer to just deal with them in the house for 6 months, as i did with Ellis and Oakley. Its not ideal, but its the best thing at this time for this property.