Calamity Jane settles in

     The chick stories continue.  We have a couple threads going at this point:  our chick in Sick Bay #9, and what to do about hazard prevention from evil marauding threats from the sky.
     In Sick Bay #9, our injured chick, now called Calamity Jane, is, for all intents and purposes, fine.  She is blind in one eye, but otherwise appears uninjured.  She is eating, drinking, and normally active.  She makes a fair racket with her chirping and cheeping.  She has figured out how to jump out of Sick Bay, and follows us around in our home.  She becomes desolate and full of despair when she is alone.  It is so endearing, that any side issues (small....donations, shall we say) that she leaves along the way are easily managed.
     In fact,  this evening, she has figured out how to jump into our lap at the dinner table, and went so far as to finish Bryce's crab cake!  We are allowing behavioral indulgences I never would have tolerated in another pet.  Getting up on the table indeed.

Calamity Jane has gourmet taste

     As for prevention of airborne hazards, we proceeded as follows.  It stands to reason that, if we are to continue to allow the older birds out of the coop, they will need protection from the sky.  It may not be falling, but there could be another murder of crows....

     Far be it for us to proceed on a sunny day; no, we waited until it was good and wet outside.  It was the first window when Brandis was available.  Thanks to a duck blind of Robb's, chicken wire and other metal screening/fencing, we have rigged an enclosed run.  It won't keep out determined raccoons

or coyotes, but we are confident that those evil black birds are excluded.  

     We looked like drowned, uh, chickens, but afterwards, the sun came out.  And hopefully, peace and harmony will once again prevail.  

Duck blind for chicks

Duck blind from above

Trouble in River City

Calamity has hit our little urban farm.  It all started innocuously enough.  Our peeps have been happily co-habitating in their coop.   The older girls ('the Four' to differentiate them from 'the Five' and 'the Seven') have been leaving the coop in the mornings after Bryce lets them out, and they have been having dandy days doing their little chicken things in the run.  The Seven (the babies) have had the run of the coop.  All has been harmonious, and we were even thinking of singing a little Kumbaya.
      Of course, nothing can stay the same, and this seems to be true for us.  Or it is excessive pride.  The Seven have had a few escape artists who have somehow gotten out of the coop, but it was intermittent, and I was always able to get them inside fairly quickly.  Well, today was different.  They all did the houdini thing, and were outside.  I was at work, Bryce was gone until early afternoon.  She returned to a disaster.  There was a pack of evil crows, now newly named mother f@#$*ing crows in our house.  They had clustered on the roof and a few were attacking our little Seven.  Bryce returned to find one gone, one dead and one in a crow's clutches.
     Truly, Bryce is the heroine here.   She leapt into action, and wrestled the evil marauding crow (I do not exaggerate here) and rescued our little peep.  She gathered up all the frightened but otherwise unscathed girls and tucked them into the coop.  She brought our little injured girl inside to protect her.
When I got home from work, we together managed to chase the other two MFing crows out of Brandis' run, which is completely enclosed.  They must have crawled in through the chicken door.
     Our little injured peep is still touch and go.  She has one mutillated eye and was in shock all afternoon.  It is still unclear if she will make it, but she has been drinking and seems more active.  We will keep her inside tonight and see how it goes.   If she survives, she may become my favorite, for persevering in the face of such an aggressor.  Perhaps we could call her Calamity Jane.

Giving some love to our infirmary peep

     This tragedy has been grossly unsettling (and very sad) and a real eye-opener.  I somehow didn't appreciate that the crows would be our enemy.  All peeps will stay inside the coop for a couple days.  Evidently crows will return to the scene of the crime, and I don't know if we can be confident that they won't attack again.  I love our coop, but a more secure enclosure may now be in order.  Stay tuned.

Guess what we did yesterday?

    Guess what we did yesterday?  It was hot, and muggy, and took ALL day, but Brandis, Bryce and I managed to build the chick palace!  The mini peeps are a month old now, and getting a bit squeezed in their half of the brooder box.  As it is, they are spending much of the day in the run anyway, and were zipping around while we were working.  It is hilarious to see them race/fly down the run and then stop, as if to say, 'how did I get here?'
     It was getting more and more imperative to create a larger place for them.  And the bitty peeps are a week old, but on the nice days, they too are outside.

Bitty peeps out for a day of scratch and peck and peep

     The base was already built:  a masterpiece of leveling, squaring and getting the twist out of it so that the rest of the structure would also cooperate.  We had to leave it with concrete blocks on it for a few days at first.

The hole in the foreground is the future escape hatch

     Brandis was the lynch pin in this escapade, as I have conceptual understanding of what we are doing, but no technical knowledge.  We really saw this in action when putting up the rafters.  It was late afternoon by that time, and we were getting to the end of our brain reserves, but she managed to figure out the cuts to make them sit on the wall plates, very cool.

Brandis with her feat of engineering, you can't tell, but the part in the vine has specialized cuts too

     I am proud to say that MOST of what we used for building supplies was saved, scavenged (to Bryce's mortification, her mother has developed a fondness for the building site equivalent of dumpster diving) and donated:  We have old tongue-in-groove from Morgan and Jason, and a bunch of boards from our alley neighbors Michael and Katherine.  There is hay coming from Bess and Winston.  I had to make a Home Depot trip for a few more 2x (almost)4's and the plywood sheeting for the roof.  The cement pier blocks.  That was it!  As promised, the donators will be receiving eggs when the girls start producing, but that will be a while yet.

That's Morgan's tongue in groove in the foreground

We are HOME!

     So at the end of the day, we had not quite reached our goal of a functional, but not done, Taj Ma Coop.  It was 7:30, and we were beat.  While cleaning up we put the mini-peeps in for a little look around.  Brandis had her small ladder in there for a temporary roost.  It was so cute!  They were tired too, and immediately started roosting, looking totally at home.  We couldn't deny them their home.  We tacked up a few more boards to make the place racoon proof, put in the light and my outdoor thermometer to watch the temp, and they stayed.  So did the bitty peeps, in their brooder box!
    The coop is not finished, the nesting boxes are still to come, as well as siding and more secure ventilation, but it is livable until we can get to the rest.  

Hazel, Dottie and Peanut obsessing about the bitty peeps in their box

Bitty peeps obsessing about the corner with nothing in it                                                    

And then there were 7....more

     I know, I know.  At least half of you are convinced that I have lost my marbles.  Or that I am going to start wearing tie-dye skirts, peasant blouses and become a crazy chicken lady.  Or start some sort of an urban farm....
     We knew that we were going to get more chickens.  The variety that we really wanted was a Copper Maran, which, in addition to being a beautiful bird, lays eggs which are chocolate brown.  But the vendor that we went with, originally, didn't have them available until sometime in late summer.  So we ordered our other birds anyway.  And then Brandis, who really should be doing this post as it's mostly her work, found a relative of a friend who has a farm and raises guess what?  Copper Marans!  In addition, he has a cross breed called Olive Egger, which lays olive green eggs.  So, we decided months ago we would get 2 of each.  On the chance that 1-2 might be boys.  Or anyway, maybe we could give one away or something....
      So, the day arrived.  We could have waited until the birds were delivered to Seattle, but they would have been much older.   The trick is to have the baby peeps imprint on you and get used to being around humans.  So we wanted the day olds...
     Brandis and Bryce drove yesterday to....Corvallis!   Now you definitely think we are crazy chicken ladies.  And yes, you can get birds closer to Seattle.  But these are special birds!  And the man actually had the birds all boxed up for them (after a tour of the farm, a tale I cannot tell, but sounds amazing).
     It was a little bit of a surprise to find that we had not 4, but 7 little peeps!  Oh, the adventure continues!  They are all fine, and no pasting to be seen, which is nice, after our sad days with Weeble.  And two are this genetic variant of off-white with black speckles.  They will be named Yaki and Soba. The other 5 are black with white markings.  Going to have to see if we can tell them apart in order to name them.
     So the brooder is bigger now, and divided so the big girls (affectionately called the Goons) don't peck the babies.  We hope the integrate them soon.  And the peeping is constant.  SO CUTE!
     As for the Goons, they were outside for the first time this last week, and, since the weather is fine this weekend, will be back outside again when it warms up a bit today.  And Brandis and I have the new coop started, with framing to come next.   Maybe the next post will be the coop photos....
But for now, just irresistible peep photos: