Tag 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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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 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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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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Baby Chicks Join the Flock

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The day old chicks were already out of the house and in a crate in the barn.

They quickly outgrew the crate and needed some more space. At around age 6 to 7 weeks, we moved them into the movable chicken tractor so they could experience full outdoor weather for the first time and better hone their foraging skills before merging with the main flock.

The chicks in the chicken tractor.

Here is a video of the chicks their first day in the chicken tractor:


The chicken tractor is moved every couple of days to a new spot to avoid dead spots in the pasture from too much foraging and digging. After a couple of weeks in the chicken tractor, the chicks were finally ready to join the main flock.

Click through to see pictures and videos of the chicks joining the main flock.

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Baby Chicks Move Outside

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The day old chicks we were raising outgrew their cage in the house after about 4 weeks.  They were ready to move outside to the barn. They didn’t need the heat lamp any more and were ready for more space and fresher air (the house needed to be aired out by that point as well!).

I used an outdoor pet exercise pen and covered the outside with chicken wire to make sure the chicks couldn’t squeeze out between the bars. I added a wooden crate and a cement block inside to give them something to climb and roost on. The floor is covered with pine shavings to help maintain cleanliness and provide the chicks with something to kick through.  The roof over the pen was just a scrap of wood from the barn to prevent them from flying out and any other chickens from getting in.

Four week old chicks out in the barn.

Click through for a video and more photos of the baby chicks.

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Day Old Chicks

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New arrivals: we bought 6 day-old chicks!

Last year, we raised 3 bantam Cochins but they were already 6 weeks old when we got them. We also picked up a couple of hens from the NY state fair, but those were already grown.  This year, we decided to try starting with day old chicks.

We picked up our chicks from a local hatchery and brought them home in a small shoebox with a few air holes. They chirped loudly most of the drive home.

The chicks try to hide from the camera in the corner of their cage.

They are very cute and fluffy!

Click through for some more pictures!

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