From Kind to. . .Vicious???

For some reason Lime wanted to kill my hand, and she wanted to do it bad. . . .

A few minutes after giving the flock some treats, Lime decides to tear a bit of skin.

When I paid my daily visit to the chickens, they started tugging and pecking hard on my pants. As I shooed them away with a wave of my hands, Lime all of the sudden pounced on it and gave my hand a painful peck.

Down I looked, and surprisingly a small bruise was quickly forming.

I ignored this, and bent down to pet Lime as I always did. Usually she wouldn't mind, but this time she snapped and turned her head around to peck my hand off of her feathers. I withdrew my hand to avoid the peck and with hackles raised, she attacked again!

Lime turns around to deliver a flying peck. . .

Lime missed.

I playfully lifted her up at eye level and she snapped again, this time at my face. I let go and Lime plopped back onto the ground.

She shook her vanilla colored feathers as she steadied herself and started ramming against my knees. Her feathers were all fluffed up in confrontation mode. Lime circled me several times, each time tilting her head to meet my gaze in a stare of defiance. After a few seconds she gave up and went back to her food bowl.

I experimented with her reaction towards a glove. She hated it even more than my hand.

I felt a sort of betrayal in friendship. Lime had never attacked me before, she was the friendliest pullet in the flock. Lime enjoyed human companionship and would be the first to greet me at the door, she followed me around the chicken enclosure, and came running (most of the time) when called.

Yet. . . 

How could such a friendly gal suddenly want to draw blood?

Had Lime lost her docile temperament to the recent freezing temperatures?

I wondered if she thought of me either as this:

OR

An example of the "ice cream truck effect".

Egg Ritual

Baa-AH! au-au-a-a-bwua-AH! au-au-a-a--ba-AHH!!" The sound of Mellow's histerical bleating could even be heard through the window.

Who knew such a little chicken could bauwk as hard as she did?

Here's a recording of Mellow's noisy "buaa-AH's!"


Soon, the little white heads of Lime and Lemon popped out of the doghouse in confusion. Not knowing what to do, they added in soft cluckings of their concern for their dear little flock member Mellow.
 I noticed that Spice was sitting in on of the nesting boxes. Mellow stopped her loud bauw-AH-kings and ran back into her little hideout: the doghouse as soon as I arrived. Apparently, it was another call for attention on her newly laid egg; I spied a small light brown egg nested among the pine needle bedding (under Spice).

For some reason all the girls like the nesting box on the top left corner, they lay their eggs there everyday. Once in a while though, I do find eggs on the bottom box too. Another acceptable place to lay eggs is the doghouse. The chickens love to hang out there all day. I took a peak today on the other side of the chicken enclosure where the doghouse was positioned. Here's what I saw when I looked inside the doghouse:

Lemon stands up and stretches after laying her egg.

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Now back to Spice. . . 

Spice was well settled in the favorite nesting box among the chickens. I could tell that she would soon lay an egg as she started panting heavily.

Spice prepares to lay her egg.

Still wet, her egg pops out!

Soon after the egg was laid, Spice hopped out of the nesting box, and Lime who had been observing for a a while, decided to hop in.

Settling in. . .

Quite the comical expression. Doesn't lil' Lime look so motherly for a change?

After a LONG time, Lime finally jumped back out, fluffed her feathers, and headed back to the doghouse. Well, I guess that's all the egg laying they will do today!

The Downfall of Spice

Ever since Spice was a little chick, she was born a leader. Spice made it very distinguishable at a young age that she was very confident and never feared or doubted her abilities as top hen. But recently I've been noticing a change in the flock. Spice no longer pecked at Charcoal when she got in her way. I was even more surprised when Charcoal even disrespectfully tried to confront Spice. My suspicion was that there was a change in the pecking order.

Lime tries to clean Spice's beak. Spice in the meanwhile, domineers her way through this pesty insolence again.

Usually the way I test the ranks of each chicken, is I hold. .  . for example Spice. I'll grasp her feathered body and move her slowly up and down, let's say in front of Charcoal to see her reaction. *this technique doesn't work 100%  of the time though*. If Charcoal freaks out and makes a dive to the side to avoid the conflict, I will know that she is a lower statues than Spice. However, if Charcoal does not waver her stance and instead raises her head to meet the confrontation growling, she will be confirmed as higher ranked in the pecking order.

This was one problem.

As Spice's head bobbed up and down rudely in front of Charcoal's face, Charcoal snapped."This is an abomination!" she bauwked in her low and dangerous monotonous voice. Charcoal's head shot up and warned of a quick peck of obedience about to be executed. I lowered Spice's head to avoid any unnecessary blood to shed.

I wondered in confusion. Where had the proud, confident, and courageous Spice I had always known disappear off to?

Maturing Into Hens. . .

After Thanksgiving, the chicks had big changes in their physical appearance. Lemon had the greatest of all; she got tomato-red and bigger wattles and a comb that flops over to the side  like an adult Leghorn's, she had also increased in body size, and is now about the size on a full grown hen.

Top and bottom: Lemon and her proud big red wattles and comb.

Lime my other White Leghorn on the other hand was still her small slim size, with big bulgy eyes of curiosity, or as some would say, cuteness (I would note deviousness), only a little bit of growth in size of her comb and wattles were most noticeable but they were now as red as Lemon's.

Lime in her dazed stare. A couple of ways to distinguish Lime and Lemon from each other is their size; Lemon is much bigger than Lime, I have also noticed that Lemon's eyes are farther spaced from her beak. Lime's eyes are kept close to her beak, creating an appearance of cuteness and curiosity.

The comb and wattles have also gotten larger in size and redder in Spice as well, the only ones in the flock who had not changed were Charcoal and Mellow. Mellow of course, had already reached adulthood and was frequently every week, laying eggs in the coop. She would presumably look the same in her lifetime, a small dark brown figure running with mad sprint in a hobbled fashion across the yard to catch up with the flock. Charcoal still had the same personality rank, and physical appearance though a tiny bit of her facial parts had become flushed in a vermilion hue; the tips of her comb still bore the same coral color, with lighter yellowish tints.

Spice's comb has now started forming a rounder circle with longer points, and in her holy authority it also appears to resemble a crown.

And again. . . the great! The terrible! And the vigilant Lemon strikes back! Terrifying the soles out of my boots.

The eccentric little buggers peck away at my boots, and ooooo! Their favorite, jeans. . .
* Lemon (left), Charcoal (middle), and Lime (right).

Pumpkin Feast

The pumpkins that had been sitting in the front of my front steps had started rot and become soft and squishy. It would be a waste to just throw away the 2 pumpkins (one big,the other tiny), so over the weekend I decided to give the flock a taste, my old rangers liked squash so I figured that the new girls would like pumpkin as well. I set the heavy carrot-orange round pumpkins in the chick's enclosure before letting them out.

When I finally opened the coop door, the pullets hastily pushed each other aside, trying to get out first. First to hop out was Lime, who made a hysterical performance of flying out of the coop, spastically flapping about, then circling about a full 360 degree turn, and ending with a run at full throttle towards the enclosure door. This was probably Lime's idea of fun; all that replied to her actions were my held in giggling, and the consistent and impatient moaning and groanings of the chickens, who were waiting in the doorway. Next was Lemon, who also made an interesting contribution to prove the excellence in the performance of flight in chickens. Charcoal was the loudest of all. Squawking like a pigeon that had had it's tail feathers stepped on, she landed too far and quickly corrected the direction in her flying and followed the rest of the flock, who were already making their way to their chicken enclosure.

Then a bit farther past the doorway stood. . . the pumpkins!

They sat there. . . waiting for them. . .just waiting. . . . .
And as their eyes laid upon them, the chickens gasped, "they're back! . . ."

- Exert from The Ones Who Watched, Stalked, and Haunt Us (In the view of the chickens)

*Note:* The title above is not a real document

Peering at the strange twisted inside of the pumpkin, Lemon fights between temptation and reason.

Soon, more of the flock comes to help. With long stretched out suspicious eyes, wary of the unmoving orange irregular sphere and the flattened sidekick on the left laying in an unwise position, the chickens march onward..

They find it wise to keep an extra eye on the big on especially.

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In approximately 30 minutes. . .

The entire flock catches on to the purpose of the pumpkins and begin their feast.

Before:

After (the next day):

You can see that there is a great difference in the pumpkin in the next day it was left out, the pullets apparently love eating pumpkin. 

On the second day, the pumpkin was frozen and when hit,was as hard as a rock. Here in this picture you can see the  moisture in the squash has turned into ice crystals embedded in the long strands of fiber.

New Baby Chicks!

On July 16th my mail ordered baby chickens arrived! The original order was 1 Partridge Cochin, 1 Jersey Giant, 1 Sicilian Buttercup, and 1 assorted rare chick. But because of the bad hatching, my order was changed and the Jersey Giant and Partridge Cochin were replaced by 2 White Leghorns.

When I arrived back home I instantly went to check and see if there were any casualties (which luckily everyone was fine ). When I had gotten them settled in their brooder, they didn't know where to find water so I dipped their beaks into the waterer. After the chicks ate their fill I started naming them; the 2 White Leghorns almost looked the same but one of them had a yellower head then the other, this baby chicken was named Lemon the one that was less yellow was Lime. Spice the Buttercup was named that way because of her spotted appearance. And apparently the assorted rare chick (which I searched on My Pet Chicken, the website I ordered from) was a Blue Andalusian, named Charcoal for her hazy gray coloring complemented by a yellowish white under belly.

One Day Old

Chubby lil Spice. 

Charcoal is a bit sleepy after their long journey.

This is Lime because when she was day old she had a red spot on her beak (which eventually fell off).

Lemon has a yellower head which you cannot see from this picture.

Will you be my pillow. (top: Lemon, bottom: Lime)

Top and bottom: The little chicks playing outside of their brooder.

I also introduced the baby chicks to fluffy little Mellow. Whenever Mellow catches sight of them he makes weird clucking noises and if they come to close he pecks at them, so when they're near each other I have to watch closely. I you show Mellow a chick and draw your hand back, he follows it like an angry rooster about to attack.

Lime and Mellow are having a stare down.

Soon in a few days their personalities were unraveled and Spice I discovered was a brave and fearless lass, standing up to the foreign object while her sisters ran away in fear therefore deeming her leader of the flock. Lime was a quiet chick who liked to be near people and was not as easily frightened of hands as the others, but I see her very often confronting Spice trying to take her place on the throne (I think that she's second in status). Lemon likes to sleep in the brooder and is less adventurous than the others, she's usually the last to leave the box. Last but least, Charcoal the smallest of all loves being in high places and flies up onto the top of the brooder a lot.

2 Week Old

Top and bottom: Spice the proud flock leader.

Charcoal and Lime.

Synchronized preening.

Lemon with Spice.

Top and bottom: Curious little chickens.