Life With The Flock: Lacy Duckwing's Flock Thread

Lacy Duckwing said:

Life with the Flock:
Lacy Duckwing's Flock Thread​

Hello, fellow BYCers and friends! Welcome to my flock thread! Here, I will tell some of my life stories with my birds, post occasional updates, and most likely, tons of pictures! I hope you will all enjoy it, and all are welcome!



My Current Birds:


Nightfall; 2021-2022 Rooster of the Year:

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Nightfall is an EE/Rhode Island Blue rooster. He hatched on July 13, 2021. He was the youngest of his hatch, and even being my current only rooster, he's not very dominant. The hens often like to bully him, though he is finally coming around. He's slightly skittish and is very delayed.

Aundria; Queen of the Flock:

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Aundria is a Blue Rock hen. I got her in September 2020, and she had hatched earlier that year. Aundria is the queen of her flock, and what I call my 'Showbird'. (A Showbirds is a bird that is very photo genetic, very pretty, and one that I like to show off to everyone.)

Princess; Everyone's Favorite:

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Princess is a Buff Brahma hen. I got her at the same time I got Aundria, and she's the same age. She is often everyone's favorite whenever I show off my birds. She's my largest hen.

Penny II; The Bully:

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Penny is a Sliver-Laced Wyandotte hen, who's the same as Aundria. She is a mean hen and has even gotten in trouble for being a bully.

Maisy; An Interesting Bird:

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Maisy is a Cukoo Maran (mix?) hen. Again, she's the same as Aundria. Just, I got her six days after I got my five hens with Aundria. Maisy is a different type of hen. She has a very high tolerance for anything. Earlier this year, she went broody. She was the broodiest hen I ever owned, which makes it hard for her being my smallest hen. She loves raw deer meat, especially when it's served to her on a fork. Though she's my smallest hen, and probably my ugliest, she's intelligent, and feisty and can easily stand her ground.

Rocky II; Special, No Doubt:

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Rocky is a Golden Comet hen. She's the same age as Aundria, with me getting her at the same time. Of the original six hens that I got in September, she was my favorite. She comes to her own name, and she helped me train the rest of my flock to come to the treat call. I don't have many recent pictures of her, because she's currently my Bald Butt Society bird. Penny, in particular, thought it'd be a nice thing to do, by plucking her rear end bald. Rocky skipped out on this year's molt, so she is still bald back there.

Jewels; My Problem Chicken:

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Jewels is a Speckled Sussex and the same as Aundria. She is a beautiful hen with an outstanding tail. (Sorry you don't see that tail in any of those pictures. She's finishing up her molt.) She is my 'problem' chicken. Within the first few months of owning her, I discovered she had a crop issue. With treatment looking to complicated, with no real answers, I bought her a crop bra. Her crop appear to have healed after several months of wearing the bra, so I decided to take it off. Bad idea. After a couple of days, she got a bad case of impacted crop, so back with the crop bra. After some more time with the bra, and frustrated that she had to wear it, I finally got some help from @Wyorp Rock, and she now appears to be doing well; crop bra free!

Beth II; The Amazing Rescue:

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Beth is an Isa Brown hen. She was rescued, by my Mom, on a busy highway earlier this year. Beth took a deep liking to me and will follow me ANYWHERE. She's very special to me because of that and got a special place in my heart.

Shiloh II; Much Different From the First:

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Shiloh is an EE/Rhode Island Blue pullet. She's Nightfall's sister, and hatched a day before him. She's a solid Blue hen, and is friendly. I've been training her to come to her name, which she is learning, just she needs some improvement still. She loves adventures, and if I'm not paying attention, she'll get a little too far away.


Well, I hope everyone enjoys my flock thread! Everyone is welcome to follow!

Special thanks to my best friend, @cluckmecoop7, for the title, and for motivating me to decide to do this.

If anyone want to, feel free to check out my YouTube Channel Lacy Duckwing, here.

Click to expand...

Such wonderful photos! Thanks for sharing!

QueenBean said:

Such wonderful photos! Thanks for sharing!

Click to expand...

Thank you!

Update:

Today my chicks got introduced to bread for the first time. I brought in a heel, and they were all scared of it. Slowly, Sarah got brave and tried a small piece. Then I started occasionally throwing out small pieces for the chicks. Sarah got the first piece, and her behavior told everyone that what she had was good. Slowly but surely, other chicks started trying out the heel I had. Turbulence was second after Sarah, and Bobby ended up being a pig. Cody even got brave and ate out of my hand! He's been so skittish, but that bread did something. For later, when I brought in some Plantain weed, he came close for that like he wanted some.

Something has been going into my hen coop during the day, for I have discovered a whole in the bottom of a feed bag. I'm assuming it's chipmunks, because I've seen them in my coop before. I sprayed down some rat repellent around the grain and the doorway. Then I discovered what looked like rat activity in the flock's winter run. So I sat up some rat poison in there. Hopefully the rats disappear, and don't hurt any of my birds. A huge rat was spotted by my chick coop this morning by my Mom, so I'm really hoping I have no trouble with them, and can get rid of them quickly.

Update:

Seven of my chickens were rehomed today at a chicken swap.

Six of those chickens were my Originals. That's Rocky the Golden Comet, Aundria the Blue Rock, Princess the Buff Brahma, Maisy the Cuckoo Maran (mix?), Jewels the Speckled Sussex, and Penny the Silver-Laced Wyandotte. Princess sold first to someone who was a Brahma lover. Next sold Aundria, Rocky, and Jewels (Jewels was free). The buyer was into rescuing injured chickens and said they'd nurture Jewels so I'm pleased to see her go to that person. Then Lastly went Penny and Maisy, with Cody the Olive Egger cockerel.

The six Originals:

Cody the Olive Egger cockerel:


With the Originals gone now, the coop is very lonely. Shiloh was very upset tonight as she sat on a perch all alone. She misses her close friend of Birds of a Feather Flock Together, Aundria. I put Beth next to Shiloh and told her that she's now the queen of the flock (Shiloh has taken her friend's place). Shiloh seemed a little comforted from that all, but she was still upset without Aundria and the flock.

Shiloh (left) with Aundria (right). The two had become inseparable until they were separated for forever today.:


~Lacy Duckwing

Today my two hens got a smaller run. They're not very happy with it, but they don't need the space they did have.



I also gave each flock a cabbage, and obviously, the chicks liked theirs better.

Cody looks so cute I can't get over his little crest! I'm glad your chickens were rehomed to some good chicken lovers! I hope Shiloh feels better.

The second batch of chicks got out to free-range some today. (Those are Lilac, Amber, Twyla, and Owl the Easter Eggers, Macy and Zelda the Cuckoo Marans, and Tweety IV the Isa Brown.)

Update on the flocks:

Today, I put them together as one. It started out with them free ranging together as the chick coop got cleaned. When it was time for everyone to go back in, Beth and Shiloh were in the chicks run, so I let them stay.

For the first day together, everyone did fairly well. The chicks didn't go into hiding, but even took dust baths in their favorite spot. Most of the chicks are giving Beth and Shiloh their space, though a few would get close.

Now tonight is their first night together. I had to temporarily remove Beth and Shiloh from the coop so the chicks could go in and get into their spots. Then I returned the two and put them on the 1st level away from the chicks. Come morning, I'll know how everyone did. Hopefully the night goes as well as today went.

Update:

It's been a week since everyone has moved together. Things has been rough, but today, when I gave the flock a treat, some of the chicks was eating next to the hens. In fact, Lilac "Thief", even dared to take some of the treat away from Beth! So there's been some improvement, and this week things should start getting better.

Now there is a new problem. The chicks keep flying out! They're too young for me to wing clip them yet, plus I don't want to. I've started to "punish" them for escaping, but haven't stuck with it. Punishing them is actually tiring them out so they don't fly out again that day, but it didn't work for ol' intelligent Macy, so I've gotten discouraged on that. Victoria is usually the one escaping and occasionally Macy and Marvalo. They're flying out by flying on the gate. I might have to move the flock to the hens coop to stop the chicks from escaping, but eventually they'll start escaping by flying on the winter run, which is why Shiloh is wing clipped.

Today both Eli (Lemon Cuckoo Orpington cockerel) and Smokey (Lavender Orpington cockerel) was successfully rehomed. They went together to a good home. The person owned other Orpingtons including Lavenders and was pacifically looking for a Lavender Orpington rooster to go with their Lavender Orpington hens.