Comb and Claw

The babies are sure growing fast! This little babe has a unique feature! Can you spot it?

v v v v v v

They've got an extra toe!

If you remember from Flock Fridays last year, we highlighted a breed called the Salmon Faverolle. They have 5 toes on each foot (typical chickens have 4), feathered feet, and beards.
This little baby has feathered feet and when we looked closer we discovered it's got a tiny extra toe on one foot!

That means this boy/girl is half Faverolle! Can't wait to see what they look like as they get bigger!

We're up to SEVENTEEN!
😳😳😳

First baby!

Others are pipped now... we're all gleefully monitoring the incubator ❤️

Good morning!

Here at Comb and Claw we're getting ready to kick off the Spring 2023 Hatching Season!

This intrepid little chickie is the ~first~ pip of the year! A "pip" is that first little chip in the eggshell as a chick gets ready to get to work breaking out!

Chicks have an "egg tooth" - a hard, sharp, angled growth on the tip of their beak - that they use to pip the egg. They'll then work to break a larger line around the egg until it's weakened enough to push away.

It's very important that chicks do this themselves! Breaking out of an egg is hard work, and it proves that they're strong enough to survive. Hatching can take up to 24 hours so patience is key!

Banties in the cold!

Left to right, top to bottom:
Bibi, Londo, Ghost
Chungus, Lucky, Dove, Agus
Willow, Rust, Magnolia, Snowflake
Maple

Not pictured: Tina, Toast, Snowball, and Sunrise

Some breeds of chicken are more tolerant of cold than others, and we try to have hardy types for our Wisconsin winters. Chickens are tiny feathery furnaces, especially with some extra protein and carbs to burn. We supplement during the winter with cracked corn and try to make sure all drafts are stopped up (Great Stuff spray foam!).

Naturally, egg production drops in the cold (even with supplemental lighting) as the birds use more energy to keep themselves warm. Fluctuations in egg production throughout the year can be hard to predict and almost always complicate the lives of those of us who sell eggs, but it's important to remember that chickens are living creatures, not machines!

Stay warm out there!

I swear, we didn't raise this year's spring hatch with the intent of keeping another rooster, but my junior farm hand (JFH) made a good point: we have 40 hens now and only 2 roosters.
The general rule is 10-15 hens per rooster for adequate fertilization, protection, etc and to avoid harem conflicts. We would've been short-staffed, as it were.
JFH was allowed to pick which of the young roosters would be joining the flock with some criteria:
1) No bad attitude. Roosters must be well-behaved or they're fired (straight into a soup pot)
2) No known defects. No crooked toes, weird conformation, or poor feathering.
3) No colors/patterns we already have. There's no need for confusion and duplicate boys.

JFH chose very carefully and was charged with naming the newbie. And so, for today's Flock Friday, I present: Maximus, aka Max.

Farm hands come in all shapes, sizes, and ages!

And there's nothing like a pile of fresh straw to take a break in when you're cleaning out coops!

Always remember to stop and appreciate the little things, even when you're up to your elbows in chicken muck and shed feathers 😉

*sigh*

We have four lady ducks.
They lay beautiful large creamy-white eggs...

Wherever they please.

Today's batch wasn't in their nice clean Duck House with the freshly limed floor and the deep bedding of chopped straw, OH NO.
It's in a disused fire pit, tucked into a shallow nest dug in the old ashes.

Thanks 🙄

I didn't FORGET last week's Flock Friday, I just ended up so busy I could barely get any hang time with the chickens.

So for THIS WEEK, I wanted to show off one of our "teenagers". She's one of our brooder babies and is almost all grown up. What breed is she? No idea.

Her father was either Dasa or Fox and her mother was one of about 30 individual hens across 6 different breeds. All I know is she's got the cutest little fluffy hat on top.

With her wild hairstyle (check out that last pic!) and how close she was getting to the Scary Human, we're thinking of calling her Merida. Pretty brave for a chicken 😉

Colorful eggs every day!

The dark brown/speckled ones are out of our Welsummer hens. The green/speckled is an Olive Egger, and the blue is an Easter Egger.

Egg shell color is caused by chemicals in the hen's system being applied to the developing egg before laying (oocyanin and protoporphyrin). Blue eggs are blue all the way through because their color is applied earlier. Brown eggs are white inside because their color is applied just before laying, which is why you can see streaks and "blurs" on a freshly laid brown egg: it's wet paint! A green egg is brown applied OVER blue, so green eggs are blue inside.

Colored eggs aren't healthier than white eggs (that's more about the conditions the hens live in) , but they do make for a lovely variety in your egg carton!

Ooooh it's a LONG one today on this Flock Friday.

This is Sweetie. Sweetie is ~probably~ immortal. She's also a Salmon Faverolle hen, if you're into mundane stuff like that.

Sweetie was purchased via internet order from a hatchery we'd used before, but it was right when the USPS started having trouble with carriers thanks to the first COVID lockdown. Other chicken-keepers were reporting whole boxes of chicks that were DoA and hatcheries were swamped with replacement orders and complaints.

About a week after our order arrived, it became clear that one of our Faverolle chicks wasn't doing well. She was smaller than the others, walked with a limp, and didn't seem to be able to balance well but she was eating and drinking and peeping so we let her be.

As time passed, the size difference became more pronounced. She was a third of the size of her sisters and was frequently pushed around by the other chicks.

Eventually the chicks matured enough to move out to our junior coop, but Sweetie wasn't ready yet so we brought her into the house. She lived in a pet cage in a bedroom where she had daily exercise sessions, rich food, and vitamins in her water. Little by little, she gained her balance and was one day able to walk and run without staggering. We brought her back to the junior coop where she immediately rejoined the rest of the brood where she had a secure run during the day and a safe roost at night.

A couple of weeks later, she disappeared. We scoured the junior coop, the adjacent Bantam coop, the shed loft, the run, the surrounding yard, everywhere. We were forced to conclude that a predator had somehow made off with her. She was so small, and still slower than her sisters.

Three days after that we were absolutely hammered by an intense thunderstorm. So much rain came down that the run attached to the junior coop started to flood. We grabbed shovels and started to dig trenches leading away from the coop to help siphon off all the water.

Amidst this deluge, we heard a tiny little peep. We stopped digging, and waited, and sure enough there was the sound of a chick when they all should have been locked down already. A frantic seach turned up an abandoned rat hole under the coop. Inside was a very wet and upset Sweetie. She'd taken shelter in the hole days prior but when the run flooded, the hole had started to fill as well and she was in danger of drowning.

We dug out the mud around the hole and got her free. Soaked, muddy, and starving, poor Sweetie needed a bath and a blow dry and a lot of food. She made a full recovery.

Today, Sweetie is still the smallest of the Faverolles, but she's closed most of the gap. She still likes to hide, be it behind her sisters or tucked into a corner. Like other Faverolles, she has 5 toes on each foot and a luxurious beard and fluffy earmuffs. If you're looking for Sweetie in a group, just find the littlest one with the extra white feathers in her beard 😉

"Pssst! Hey! Are you carrying treats?"

Can't go anywhere alone out here 😉

It's a bit overcast and gloomy today at Comb and Claw, but the birds love it!

Today's Flock Friday highlights a very special momma: Maya! Maya is an Olive Egger which is a ~polite~ term for a mutt. OE's are a first-generation cross between a Welsummer and a Cream Legbar that produces an olive-green egg.

Maya and her sisters lay everything from dark green speckled to light mossy green eggs and they tolerate our cold winters reasonably well. You might notice she's got a pretty big comb (especially for a hen) and those high points tend to get frostbitten in bad weather.

Maya is also the mother of our dominant rooster, Dasa (he of previous Flock Friday fame AND the model for our logo)! She can be seen on the far left of the group photo, which was the result of suddenly turning around to see who was following me...

You're never alone at Comb and Claw!

Happy Flock Friday everyone!

An American chicken breed that you don't see around much is the Buckeye. It was developed in Ohio (!) by a woman (!) named Nettie Metcalf. They were made to be hardy through harsh Midwestern winters, with stocky bodies and small combs (in a compact style known as "pea").

They only come in red, and as such aren't terribly popular in shows. Buckeyes are a "dual-purpose" breed, meaning they can be raised for meat or for eggs, being equally good at both.

This Buckeye is named Leona, because her darker head and neck feathers reminded me of a lion's mane. She has three sisters in varying shades of mahogany. Leona is exceptionally curious, preferring to stick close to us to cadge treats and to closely watch whatever we're doing. She lays light brown eggs whenever she pleases 😉

PS - enjoy the blooper shot. I caught Leona shaking herself and she looks absolutely ridiculous.

More bee chow!

Wild Daisy, Hawkweed, Mock Orange, and Spiderwort! All of them are lovely (if not strictly native) blooms in our yard and all of them feed our voracious young bees.
The Hawkweed, especially, is noticeable on foraging workers by its brilliant orange pollen.

It's that time again!
(Time to take over the world)

Flock Friday! Today's spotlight is on Blue, an Easter Egger who also has the privilege of being mother to our fancy-pants rooster, Fox.

Blue was named for her gray-blue feathers and, of course, for her ability to lay lovely blue eggs. She's not terribly fond of being picked up or handled, but is a gentle hen nonetheless. She doesn't pick fights or start drama with the rest of the flock.

Her chicks tend to inherit her blue feathers, which is why we hatch out some of her eggs every year. We hope you enjoy admiring her photos as much as we admire her in our yard!

We can't get over the sheer variety of colors and patterns in our "Barnyard Mix" chicks. They're teenagers now and really starting to settle into their personalities.

Still a little early to call hen/roo on most of them but we just had to share some recent photos of our sweet brooder babies!

Which are your favorites?

The Bantams are getting big!
Well... bigGER anyway.

This young Mille Fleur (translation: "thousand flowers") is out enjoying the sunlight in our closed run today!

The patterning on a Mille Fleur often changes significantly through successive molts, adding or subtracting white spots throughout. Hens lay (very small) off-white eggs.

Even as chicks, these chickens have feathery feet. Because of this, their feet and legs are prone to getting dirty in muddy runs or seldom-cleaned coops. In general though they're friendly, calm, and as you can see: extremely photogenic!

For today's Flock Friday, we bring TWO chickens! Say hello to Bibi and Tina, a pair of Silver Sebright Bantam hens!

(Bonus points for knowing the origin of their names WITHOUT resorting to Google).

Which one is which? We don't actually know. When they were chicks, Bibi had slightly lighter-colored feathers on her head, but over the years and many many molts, we've lost track of who's who.

That's okay though, since they're almost never apart anyway. These two girls aren't terrific layers (Sebrights, as a general rule, aren't) but they ARE consistent and as visitors usually remark, they're "so pretty!".

Sebright roosters are absolute demons, so we're quite happy to host this pair of pint-sized ladies as part of our Bantam flock!