Blue Tamago

Roosters are always thought to be the dominant ones, with the hens meekly submitting to them and the boys getting all "cocky" that they always get their way. We all thought that right? We'll that's definitely not the case! As Buffy found out on the weekend, some hens will put young roosters in their place. And not gently either!

It's rather unfortunate that Penguin has some new feathers growing on his head that look like horns. Combined with his bushy eyebrows, he looks like a devil, or what a chicken devil would look like! He's got that evil stare going on doesn't he? Too funny to resist, had to share photos of him and his evil look.

How cute is this? I walked into Penguin's coop and I couldn't find him but I could hear him clucking away. I then peeked into the nest box and there he was! Making a nest for his hens! Pretty futile though, none of them are laying at the moment due to their annual moult. At least the garnered the attention of Dum Dum. He makes all these clucking noises to gain the attention of his hens, shuffles down in the straw to make a nice comfy sitting area and he places bits of straw to make the nest. OK, with the straw bit he just picks it up and drops it, but it's the thought that counts :) Roosters can be cute and gentle! Goodnight everyone!

I've been wanting to do this post for a while now and some recent changes have brought this to the forefront. When young, Penguin was definitely the dominant rooster, chasing all the hens and jumping (somewhat forcefully) on them. Buffy was seen as the small upstart that no one would pay attention to. You can imagine with all the hormone raging in the roosters, he was somewhat frustrated, until he found "Handy".

I know that Penguin and Buffy love to fight each other, and I've been watching both of them for a while now and I've noticed a particular sequence of events that occur before they start to fight. It tends to happen in this order: Flapping/Crowing Chest Puff Nonchalantly walking closer Crowing After seeing this occur numerous times, I think this is what they are trying to do

 Buffy and Penguin are now 1 year old! Hard to imagine that the once looked like this:   From squeaky balls of fluff we got two roosters that grew up together. For the first few months of their lives, they were inseparable and did everything together. Then at about 7 months, they started fighting over the hens, to the point that we had to separate them permanently :( Their first meeting together. Playtime together! So what did these two gentleman do for their birthdays? Penguin err..snoozed under the rhubarb... And Buffy moved into his own new coop and run. Here he is checking out some food inside the coop. Buffy will share his coop with Flopsy, the mature Leghorn, plus all the little chicks that we bought. So he will have 7 in total! Far more than the 3 that Penguin has. Here is Buffy showing Flopsy the best nest in the world. Buffy spent a good 20 minutes flattening the straw and making a nest. Flopsy on the other hand, seem...

Since Buffy and Penguin absolutely hate each other we had to build a new coop and a run to keep the two separated. Buffy will have a cohort of hens and Penguin will keep the Araucanas. Just before Christmas, the fencing was started and the area for the run marked out. It's actually larger than the current one, but just devoid of much vegetation. Trench digging and laying out a skirt is a must. Foxes are in the area and notorious for digging through fencing. We could have spent about $1000 for a brand new coop, but I had mainly pallets and other scrap material. This way, I could tailor the coop to the space (slightly slopey and under a tree), plus it is significantly cheaper. Had to mark out the base and get them level. First wall is up. Not long after, the second section went up too. The second section included the space for the chicken door and a window. They were kept up by bracing until I could get the proper frame up. Unfortunately, we had a rain and wind ...

Well...what has happened in another month? Last time Buffy was valiantly wooing the chickens, but was only getting Flopsy to agree with him. Now, Buffy holds court with not just Flopsy, but with Chicky, DeeDee and Pippy. It was rather surprising with Chicky, normally she just tells Buffy to get lost (with a peck), but this sneaky little fella often jumps onto Chicky when her back is turned.  Pippy is normally too fast for any of the boys to catch her. But in this last month, Pippy would madly scramble away only to lie down on the grass a few meters away. Penguin was the first to get her to do that, but she will now lie down for Buffy too. I find it interesting that Penguin would immediately start hanging around the other Araucanas. He never looks after the other hens the same way he looks after his hens.He will often give food to them, make nests, find dust bathing places and generally follow them around the garden to look after them. He never does this with Effie ...

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 a...

What a gruesome sight to come home to! Met the boys at the back when we came home from work and found Buffy like this! I couldn't tell where the cut was, whether it was on his head or on his comb. After cleaning it with just warm water, I couldn't find any injury to his head, so I suspect it was his comb that got cut and it bled A LOT! Combs have a very good vascular system, which would mean that it would bleed quite a bit when cut. The cleanup Now we had to try and work out what happened, it didn't take us long to find the prime suspect... Arrow pointing to the blood under his beak Blood on his feathers They still spent the night together, but I did notice that Buffy did not crow as much in the morning. Generally Penguin starts crowing and Buffy joins in. This morning, it was Penguin crowing most of the time, with Buffy only crowing once or twice. When I let them out, Buffy was definitely wary of Penguin, and kept his distance, which confirme...