Chicks - Grow With Me - The 7th Month

Well I did say that the 6th month would be the last in the Grow With Me series, but quite a bit has changed in the 7th month and I had to include it. For starters, Penguin has discovered that if he stands on things, his crow can travel further. So you will find him atop the compost bin, on the vegetable patch, on the table, on the chair, anywhere up high and crowing his little heart away.

One of the biggest changes is that the two boys are constantly fighting! You can read what we came home to one day here.

As the days went on though and we observed the two, we noticed that Buffy was often the one to initiate the fights. Looks like in this photo he came off second best. Penguin is the type just to defend himself, but when Buffy presents himself with this lion-look neck flare, Penguin retaliates. Both try to spur each other. Incidentally, in the chicken world this is called flogging, I wonder why, I thought spurring would have been more appropriate.  Anyway, they can't do any damage as they don't have spurs yet. Both have bumpy lumps on their legs where the spurs would eventually grow, but nothing yet.

Buffy not only picks fights with Penguin, but fights with Chicky and with Effie, both of those ladies have no interest in a little upstart like Buffy. Just today Buffy got to feel the sharp beak of Chicky! It must be because Buffy is a ginger, you know how fiery those redheads are!

They were fine for a while until during one of our nighttime cuddles, Buffy kept on attacking Penguin from behind. We though they would be ok, but in their cage, Buffy still kept on attacking Penguin. For their safety, it was best to separate them. It was sad, one of them had to leave the cage and we figured since Buffy keeps on attacking the others, Penguin would be the one to migrate to the big chicken coop. I picked him up (his heart was beating fast) gave him a cuddle, took him to the big coop and placed him next to Dee Dee (she sleeps on the lower rung, the other aruacanas sleep on either the straw or on the smaller perch on the opposite side). 

The next morning, I was up early (well they do crow early) and off to see my little boy in the shed. The hens must have had a shock when he started crowing in the morning, not a noise that they are used to!

The next night I watched what he would do. Would he head back to his cage with Buffy?

Sadly no, he seems to like being the only rooster in the hen house, he saw all the hens in and jumped up on the lower rung and snuggled up to Dee Dee. No more night time cuddles before bed with me.

The most interesting development is Buffy's infatuation with Flopsy, the smallest chicken is in love with the biggest chicken! Flopsy has been spurring Buffy's advancements for the past month and a half, most of the time we see little Buffy hanging onto Flopsy's tail being dragged around the garden. But in the last few weeks, Flopsy was showing signs that she is nearing her first lay after the winter downtime. This meant that she was more receptive to Buffy's attempts at wooing her. Until one day...

Yes, Flopsy finally crouched for her! The little one was crowing extra loud the next day.

On the other hand, Penguin has won the hearts of Chicky and Effie, both of them squat for Penguin when he walks past them.  The twins sort of squat for him, but I'm not sure what goes through Dum Dum's head. Pippy is nearing her lay, but is only just beginning to be receptive to his advancement.

 So that is the current situation, Buffy sleeps in the cage and Penguin in the shed. The only downside is that Penguin now sleeps at dusk, which means he wakes up VERY EARLY and starts crowing. As we are heading into spring, the sun starts to rise early, the other day, 4:15 am he started...-__-  and when one crows, the other crows.

 We did talk to our neighbours about his crowing. Our immediate neighbour on our right told us on their own initiative that they liked the crowing noise. The other neighbour, said that they haven't noticed it. The house immediately behind us is currently unoccupied (thank goodness as the coop is right near that house) and the other neighbours are further away. So far so good, but this might change when the boys crow ever earlier!

I'm off to bed now, those early crows have been waking me up :P