Pick up the chickens from a craigslist offering for $20 each. They are about six months old from mail order chicks, recently started laying and the owners are moving plus the neighbors have complained about egg laying noise. They have layed eggs in perfect silence here so far. I would love to see the commotion but I think he reassures them enough that they feel no need to make a fuss. Or perhaps they just haven't developed the routine yet or I happened to get the three most quiet birds in the flock of 10.
They have been free range chickens with organic feed in a large suburban back yard. The owners have a couple toddlers but didn't handle the chickens, so I had to come in the evening to more easily grab them from their roost. One Buff Orpington (supposed to be a super sweet breed) and two 'Ameraucana mix' because they made pink eggs rather than blue/green. I figured out they are really more like Easter Eggers without the blue egg gene but also super sweet and easy. Phoenix has the most gorgeous plumage laced like 8ie, tapering from a black base to red middle and yellow head like a flame rising from the ashes. Their down is grey underneath. Amber is overall lighter in color and more speckled with black chevrons compared to Phoenix's perfect patterned lacing.
8-2-15 Sunday morning
I let the hens out in the run, keeping the door to the coop closed for a few hours so they could get to know each other through the wire fence. Buffy the orpington showed an immediate affection for 8ie... the others were interested too but more cautious. When we put them together, it only took him a few seconds to mount Buffy, then he spent the rest of the day working on Amber and Phoenix, successfully mounting everyone before sunset more or less peacefully and everyone enjoyed immediate and total domestic bliss.
Most of his day's work is standing erect, neck extended as tall as he can get on tippy toes watching for predators. Buck! buck! buckah! if a cat, dog or crow passes by. And he spends some time chasing them around trying to mount them; strutting and 'accidentally' brushing against their sweet young bottoms - working on narrowing their sense of personal space, till he's in. The other activity is nesting/necking practice in the nest boxes. He works hard to win them. He is Barry White incarnate.
8-3-15 Monday
More of the same plus he mounted Buffy three times, which she did not appreciate! After mounting, they shake off like a wet dog: eww, cooties! That night on the roost, she aborted her egg, dropping it like a poop before the shell hardened to show her disapproval with his exessive advances. She is the smallest (but the quickest) on the bottom of the pecking order. Buffy is lightning quick and smart when it comes to identifying food - she has snatched the goodies up before anyone else knows what's going on. And she holds good sway with 8ie; he always allows her to swoop goodies from him. She is a swetie for sure. She could be at the top of the pecking order if she had a mind to but she just isn't interested in gaining control through force.
8-4-15 Tuesday
Phoenix got the favorite treatment today, with hours snuggling in the nest box.
In the afternoon, I heard the sound of fabric ripping, looked over and saw a goat tearing strips of canvas off their shelter and eating it.
8-5-15 Wednesday
Amber caught a garter snake and swallowed it head first! She got favorite position in the nest box for snuggles today.
8-6-15 Thursday
I forget the details for this day.
8-7-15 Friday
8ie didn't crow in the morning but he did crow around noon; the first time during the day since he got his ladies. He sounded kind of out of practice. He used to crow all day, every couple hours. We were talking about picking up three more hens next morning and I think he was encouraging this line of thought. There's a store in Half Moon Bay that sells 3-month old chickens once a month first come first serve. I have to open the store at 9:30 so a friend agreed to pick them up on the condition that she can also bring back a couple rabbits.
As predicted, the hens convinced 8ie to stay up later in the evening. In the depths of his depression he'd taken to the roost as early as 5PM, when it doesn't get dark till 9PM. At his best, he would go up to roost at 7PM. 8ie wakes up feeling randy - aching to mount a hen, though he doesn't always succeed, and he conceeds most of the rest of the day to standing watch and snuggling. By evening, he's ready to collect payment for the day's work and accomplishes mounting more successfully. That's the main motivation to stay up late. As late as 8:00 but tonight, around 7PM, I heard them hopping up to the roost, went out to see how they settled in and saw that Phoenix was gone. My best guess is a cat reached through the 1-1/2" openings in the wood slats and pulled her out though I didn't hear any commotion. I'll have to add wire mesh at ground level.
Then more rustling on the roost... Buffy came down and I gave her some sunflower seeds, then she hemmed and hawed about getting back up to the roost. 8ie had first position, then Amber and Buffy was left to Amber's side. I think she would rather be aside 8ie and the approach was plotting how to attain that position. One night, 8ie was first to roost but somehow Phoenix managed to crawl over him and get the prime roosting spot. Their very first night together, Amber was last up to the roost and she attempted to fly up from near the bottom straight into the huddled masses, failing and falling 7 feet to the floor. After that she resigned to a very low roost position and I took her to be at the bottom of the pecking order. It took a few days to realize she's at the top of the pecking order with 8ie's favorite Buffy at the bottom.
With Phoenix, the middle sister gone, the balance of power changed and Buffy jostled for position on the roost.
8-8-15 Saturday
Well, Phoenix is still there - turns out she was hiding above the door frame, out of sight. She took that first position again Sunday night and Monday.
8-9-15 Sunday
8ie has a short but full-on hackle-up kicking and pecking fight with Buffy late morning, then they had a long dust bath snuggle in early afternoon with lots of purring and cooing from him. Amber got nailed twice. On the roost: Phoenix was first to the safest hidy spot, with 8ie and Amber cuddled tight briefly then moved way over to the other end close to Buffy and gives her a a gentle (love peck?) on the neck. Buffy 'silent crows', Amber tight-ropes back down the roost to 8ie & back to Buffy again. I can't help but think Amber is interested in building a relationship with Buffy, on her terms of course.
'Silent Crowing' is something I saw 8ie do towards me as a bachelor and I've seen the girls do it a couple times. I think it's a kind of passive-aggressive thing like: "i'm inclined to yell at you but won't actually make a peep.' Roosters will circle a hen closely to establish dominance and he did that to me once while free-ranging but about 15 feet away from me in a broad crescent - he walked a few steps, silent crowed, walked a few more steps, silent crowed, repeat in a broad arc around me.
When 8ie was a bachelor in the depths of his worst depression, going to bed all day, refusing to free range, moaning all day for weeks prior: "uhahhhh - how can you make me live like this with no company? This is not tolerable! moan!" Then I arranged a date with one of the hens next door. The boss there has it in his mind that roosters are mean and he doesn't want his ladies harassed so it took some convincing to extract visitation from them. One cute little blond came over and to be cautious, she was just placed in a cage next to his cage. They did lots of sweet flirting, and she was ushered away a couple hours later. The next day, he was encouraged enough to free range again for a while in the evening and I noticed he wanted to come close to me. In the past I saw this desire for narrowing personal space limitations more with a stink-eye, approaching for attack but this time I didn't see any stink eye, just breaking limits of appropriate personal space barriers. His mom said: 'Bromance!', hah, well maybe sorta but I learned once he got the girls, this is just how he operates. He stalks around the coop making his rounds, neck fully extended keeping an eye out for predators while relentlessly breaking down their tolerance for closeness - casually brushing against and leaning on their cute fluffy butts till they get used to it and allow it.
I shot some video footage for a potential 'Chicken TV' youtube channel after giving them some fresh bug and grub filled soil that we scrape up under tables and between pots, while cleaning up the sales floor. Lots of athletic scratching and hunting ensues; they scratch the ground, then study the scene, looking for wiggly movements and peck, scratch, repeat. 8ie alternates between standing tall: keeping watch for predators, scratch/hunt/peck and chasing the ladies, trying to mount them.
8ie crowed mid day in two sessions for the first time since he met the girls, then at 1:40 AM, 5AM, 6AM.
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