Category Archives: Chickens

New Roosters

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Our rooster, Chirparoo, died a few weeks ago. We noticed that he was walking with a slight limp during the day and tried to treat him that evening with some pain meds, but he didn’t survive the night.

Hens are usually experience less stress with a rooster in the flock because the rooster provides protection and helps keep the peace. So we were in the market for a new rooster.

Luckily, someone nearby had a few extra roosters they were looking to part with. They had tried to hatch eggs from their flock, hoping for additional hens. They ended up with 5 roosters from 5 eggs (pretty unlucky).

Our new full size rooster.

And, to our luck, they happened to have children who played with the roosters from right after hatching, so they are very used to being handled and are friendly.

Our new bantam sized rooster “Moe”
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Shade for the Summer

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With the length and number of summer heat waves seeming to increase every year, we have been looking for additional ways to help the animals better cope with the heat.

We had been considering putting up some shade sails to provide additional shaded areas for the animals to get out of the sun. While still considering buying a shade sail, we happened to come across an ad from a local homeowner cleaning out their house before moving. They were giving away a free sun umbrella so we picked it up with the thought to use it for extra shade for the chickens.

Free sun umbrella with 3 broken spokes.

The only problem – it had 3 broken ribs. 2 had the ends broken off and one snapped off closer to the center pole.

A simple fix on one of the umbrella ribs.

The 2 ribs with broken ends just needed a quick fix – attach a length of wood to replace the missing piece. I used a couple pieces of scrap wood and some old screws salvaged from other projects over time.

The 3rd rib required two pieces with a small bolt to permit it to pivot and close the umbrella – I had to buy the bolt, along with a couple washers and a nut or two – total cost $2.78.

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Winter 2019-2020

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As the snow has finally all melted for the season and the grass is just starting to turn green, we look back at a few of the pictures we captured from the winter.

A view from the main barn.

Overall, it was a mild winter compared to average. Less snow overall and only a handful of really heavy snowfalls. Even with that, there was some amount of snow on the ground from late November through early April – though during some of that time the only snow around was the piles of snow next to the driveway.

The trees covered in light layer of snow.
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Automation Comes to Lucky Penny Acres

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Automation has come to our hobby farm. We installed an automatic chicken coop door earlier this year for extra protection against predators given our prior losses.

Automatic Coop Door – Open.

The simplest model (which is the one we purchased) provides automatic opening and closing with a daylight sensor or a set time schedule operation. The amount of daylight that triggers opening or closing is fully adjustable. It also includes a freeze protect feature with an adjustable temperature setting so that the door won’t open if it is below the set temperature (we set ours at 17 degrees). Our door requires external power but we already had power outlets in our coop so that wasn’t a big issue for us.

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Replenishing the Flock

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After the weasel attacks last fall, our chicken flock was somewhat depleted. Earlier this spring, we purchased some new chickens to add to our flock – this time we purchased day old chicks.

Day old chicks first arrive home in spring 2019.

Although they are sorted by sex shortly after hatching, there is generally an error rate of around 10% so there is always a risk with day old chicks that some might actually turn out to be roosters.

We bought 6 chicks in total – 3 Buttercup hens and 3 Ameraucana hens. The Buttercups are the chicks with the speckled heads in the pictures. We already have other Ameraucana chicks – they are also called Easter Eggers because they can produce a range of egg colors from brown to green to blue to pink (each hen only lays one color its whole life).

The chicks at around 2 weeks old – already much bigger and more active.
The chicks move out to our new weasel-proof (hopefully) pen in the barn at around one month old.

While none of the 6 appears to have been a rooster, unfortunately one of the chicks did have a health issue appear after a few weeks.

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Predators Strike (Part 2)

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As noted last time, 3 of our 4 new hens were missing, presumed dead.

The hen after she survived the initial attack.

We moved another hen from our flock to the chicken tractor so that the silver-spangled hamburg wouldn’t be alone. We also lined the outside of the chicken tractor with paving stones so nothing could dig right next to side and get underneath. This seemed to work as we saw no indications of any predators for several weeks.

After the quarantine period, we moved the silver-spangled hamburg and the other hen into the main barn so they could safely integrate back into the flock. They were inside a portable dog pen that was lined on the outside with chicken wire with a piece wood over the top. The barn has a concrete floor so the assumption was that nothing could dig underneath the pen.

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Predators Strike (Part 1)

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Last fall, consistent with past practice (see here, here and here), we picked up 4 new hens from the NY State Fair.

There were 3 bantam-sized partridge cochins and 1 silver-spangled hamburg. They were all close to fully grown. The silver-spangled hamburg is a small breed, so although she wasn’t a true bantam, she was similar size to the bantam cochins.

The hens in their carrier being carried to the parking lot at the NY State Fair. The cochins preferred to try to stack on top of each other while in transit.

As the hens were new to our flock, we quarantined them in the moveable chicken tractor for several weeks. When quarantining the new hens, we placed the chicken tractor outside of the main fences.

The 3 Bantam Partridge Cochins enjoying the chicken tractor.

The chicken tractor is covered with wire mesh to both keep the chickens inside and keep predators out. As you can see in the above picture, the wire mesh is pretty small and anything that can fit through the mesh is unlikely to threaten an adult chicken.

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Random Photos from Spring / Summer 2018

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Earlier this year in the spring I took a hike up our mountain to clean up any trash or debris that had blown onto our property over the winter.

I collected a handful of empty soda bottles (probably originally left by hunters on neighboring properties), some plastic bags, and 2 deflated balloons.

I also found a few other things in the woods:

There was a deer skeleton just onto our property. It may have died naturally over the cold winter, or it may have been shot and injured by a hunter and the hunter couldn’t track it. It appears to be the skeleton of a young buck – the antlers only have a few points.

A deer skeleton in the woods.

Deer skull with antlers still attached.

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Bonus Surprise from the New York State Fair (2017 edition)

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The 1 Partridge Rock, 2 Andalusians and a fried dessert calzone weren’t the only things we picked up from the NY State Fair last year.

We also purchased a champion hen. Meet Mille:

Mille (Pronounced Milly)

Mille is a bantam Mille Fleur d’Uccle hen. Their plumage pattern looks like a bunch of small flowers and in French, Mille Fleur means “Thousand Flowers”.

Mille won …

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Surprise from the New York State Fair (2017 edition)

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Long time readers may recall that we purchased several chickens from the New York State Fair in 2016.  We of course went to the state fair again in 2017, with extra time spent at the poultry building.

We ended up with a number of new chickens once again in 2017.

We really liked the intricate feather pattern on the Partridge Rock hen so we purchased the only one on display.  She is a bit older than many of the birds on display – she was over 2 years old and had already been in a number of shows and events before the fair.

Partridge Rock hen in her cage in the poultry building at the NY State Fair – 2017.

In addition to the Partridge Rock hen, we also purchased 2 Andalusian hens. Andalusians are fairly small for full size chickens and pretty fast on the ground. They are also decent flyers compared to other breeds. At least one of them has been flying up into the hayloft to lay eggs occasionally. They have a variety of coloring with blue (gray) with various black lacing. Our 2 Andalusians are named Andi and Luci.

Andalusian hen outside the coop.

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