Hang In There, Chick!

This is Roxie. Roxie is a good girl. She is a pretty little girl, and quite the little model, but not too long ago things were a little different.

See she had a little boo-boo on the back of her head (we think the rooster was a little rough while he was rooster-ing her), and ended up getting picked on by the other girls. It looked really bad. We almost thought we may have to put her down, but decided she deserved a chance to fight!

This was before they really got her. I'll spare you the graphic before picture.

We built her her own little pen within the chicken yard, and her own little house. She was separated, but still with her flock. She stayed in her house for the first week or two. Her wounds started scabbing over and started to look like they were going to heal up. We had hope. The day she ventured out of her house and into her little run was an amazing sign.  Eventually she had little feathers starting to grow on her neck. Then the skin starting growing back on her head. The feathers starting coming in. After another week or two she starting laying eggs again! Its been about 2 months now and she is almost completely healed up. She is happy, healthy, and itching to scratch around the yard with the rest of her flock.

Whats left of Roxie's boo-boo.

The moral of this story is when the world knocks you down and pecks the back of your head raw, hang in there chick, eventually your feathers will grow back.... or something like that.

Weekly Update 7-19-19

I have spent a great deal of time watching the baby chicks this week. I mean, come on, if you had a box of little fluffy babies at your house wouldn't you want to spend every moment possible starring at them! They're so fluffin cute!

The two older chicks are twice the size of the other pullets (baby hens), but this week we decided to just put them in together and see what happens. Surprise! They did just fine. Everybody is doing great together. The little one we hatched (that I am bout 85% sure is a cockerel, a baby roo) was play fighting with some of the bigger meat chicks (that are more than likely cockerels as well), but that is pretty normal, healthy chicken behavior. 

Ever since the raccoon attack, we've been making it a point to lock the chickens in their coop at night to keep them safe. The first couple nights some of the hens decided they may be safer sleeping outside the coop. It took several nights to try coax them in. The crazy leghorns, surprisingly, were the easiest. It's little miss Rita that is being the most difficult. It is still a struggle night after night, but she is getting better. Were also working on getting them back in the habit of laying their eggs in the nesting boxes again. I've been keeping them in the coop in the mornings until they've laid their eggs, hopefully it does the trick. 

Trying to keep cool in this crazy heat!