All Present And Accounted For Fowl Doings

Well, I am happy to report there have been no more fowl tragedies since the last installment of Fowl Doings!
Leonard the Magnificent has been re-growing his beautiful tail feathers since his late summer moult, and they are starting to look spectacular!
However...




now his crown feathers are all straggly looking! Since he's my first peacock, I don't know if they usually moult their crown feathers or not...he does have a little scab on the side of his head too, so don't know if he caught his head in something and tore them off, or if they're just moulting...





awww, don't be sad about your crown Leonard!










We'll all just look at your beautiful tail!


















Leonard has gotten much calmer and friendlier...due largely to a daily treat of yummy meal worms, I am sure! And even the mentally unstable pheasants aren't quite so hysterical any more and don't immediately start flinging themselves at the fence the minute they see me...due largely to a daily treat of yummy cracked corn, I'm sure!



Remember waaay back in the day when I had my Americauna pullets in my bathtub and I thought I spied a rooster in the group when they were just tiny chicks?

Well, I was right, and I am kind of impressed with myself lol! The little yellow rooster has turned more of a white color, but here's how we know he's a rooster...see how the feathers around the main tail feathers are getting long?

And in this pic you can just see a little iridescent glow to his actual tail feathers? Definitely a rooster, the hens don't get that iridescence in their feathers. At the time I was bummed to have another rooster, but since poor Sam B got poached by predators, I'm really glad to have a rooster so I can get more Americauna chickens...that is assuming they EVER lay an egg!

The New Hampshire Reds have finally just started laying, hooray! Once they get going, I should be able to make up for the egg money I lost when the owl and coyotes got 7 of my layers last month.

Selling the hens eggs pays for all their feed, as well as the feed for the turkeys, pheasants and peacock, so in addition to being sad about my poor chickens getting killed, I lose money too, which is always a bummer lol!

I'm down to 5 turkeys now; all my Bourbon Reds were either killed by predators or died of natural causes; the remaining Red hen I had finally died a few weeks ago which came as no surprise, she had been sickly and had a cough since the day we got her.

Notice in these pix how 4 of these turkeys have their tails up, wings down and puffed out chests? Yep, that's right, I've got 4 toms and 1 hen...so at least 2 toms have got to go...guess I better find some more turkey recipes!

In broody hen news, Freida the Frizzle is starting to get feathers again-I don't think I remembered to take a picture of her when I first brought her in the mud room, but she looked awful! The other hens were picking at her and she was pretty much naked and I was afraid they'd pick her to death, so hopefully she'll brood and not have to go back to Gen Pop!

I had my broody hens all set up in the mud room; each with her own kennel and run, food, water and eggs; however, there was a lot of visiting back and forth and no brooding, so I had to put them all in solitary lol!

Munster and Broody have successfully brooded in the past, but from what I've ready, they kind of need to be reminded that they are broody hens if they haven't brooded in a while, so you lock them in for a week or so to get them in the right frame of mind. I let one of them at a time out for a few hours every day to go to the bathroom and scratch around in their runs, then back in the kennel she goes. I'm really hoping this works; it's really difficult to find info on getting hens to brood, the instinct has mostly been bred out of them, and the few people who do get hens that want to brood usually don't want them to, so of the scant info out there, most of it is about how to get your hens to stop brooding!

So they're all locked in their kennels with fresh straw, food, water, and eggs to sit on. It's only been a few days, but so far Freida seems to be settling in to brood the best-maybe she knows how much better off she is brooding than in Gen Pop with all the other chickens picking on her lol!
happytrails!