the_yardening | Apr. 13th, 2010

The big girls are laying enough that we pretty much constantly have eggs for sale.
Except Spot.

Spot was ill as a chick, and then recovered, but I think she was damaged. Worse layer ever. Her eggs are shaped funny, her shells are always thinner than the rest of the girls, and the whites are more watery than theirs.

Given that, so far, all six chicks have survived, she may not have to worry about laying in a while. We can only have 10 hens in town, and 6 plus 5 is 11....Spot has been warned.

Meanwhile the little girls got too big for the rabbit cage where I was keeping them. When they started harassing each other I figured it was time to expand their space. They aren't fully feathered yet though, so I don't want to move their pen outside away from the plug for their heat lamp. They haven't needed it during the day, but at night it still gets chilly.

So they are in a dog pen, on leaves, in my sunroom. That floor will be fun to clean when we move them outdoors. 0.o

They are getting more and more feathers, and oh, man, do they look ridiculous. Getting better at catching any bugs that come into their space and spending a lot of time scratching and rearranging and otherwise practicing being hens. One of them has figured out the stick perch, and one has figured out if you take a bug into a corner, and fluff your wings out, you form a wall to keep the other chicks away long enough to eat your bug. They have gotten very very naughty about perching up on the side of the pen, and I had to start keeping their cage open to keep them from perching on the roof of it and pooing on whomever was in the cage looking for scratch.

Silly chickens.

We do appear to have three golden-laced wyndotte girls and three silver-laced, as intended. :)

For your viewing pleasure, our "tween hen" setup, and a pic of the boldest of the girls (only one that didn't run all the way into the cage at the flash from the first pic). :P