Chickeeduck(eegeese) Update

This morning when I went to let the chickeeduck(eegeese) out they let me know with no uncertainty that I was late! As far away as the back door I could hear Marley quacking her displeasure. When the coop door opened, she and Phoebe were off like a flash to talk about very important duck stuff.*

Oops, I've been spotted by the rest of the gang. The nuggets want to know where their corn is!

Here are Phoebe, Marley, "Ida" (ducking behind Marley--ha!), and "Bolick" strolling through the yard.

Here's Easter. Or possibly Esther, who knows. I can only tell them apart when they're next to each other because Esther has (ahem) a fuller figure. But she has a beautiful face and a great personality!

Evelyn is a chicken with a purpose. Places to go, bugs to eat, bantams to peck...


*My neighbor buddy Opie is six. He is convinced I speak duck and frequently asks me to translate. Unfortunately this morning they began quacking in a whisper so I couldn't overhear the latest gossip. Usually it's all about the new chicks--can you believe how white they are? I heard they bleach their feathers--or about Chicken Nugget Bob--he's such a bully, but those feathery legs are so dreamy!

Picture update

Without further ado, here are my new babies!


Pilgrim geese are auto-sexing, meaning you can tell their genders right after hatching. You can clearly see the difference in coloring between Bolick, on the left, and Ida on the right. Males are lighter with pinkish bills and females are darker with black bills. So far Ida is the more adventurous of the two. She may be the first to try something new but Bolick is always right behind! They're inseparable and so much fun to watch as they waddle around right next to one another.

Geeks of the world, unite!

I told a young friend that I had gotten two geese over the weekend. Today he asked me how my geeks were doing.

I should totally get some Dorking chicks, just to mess with his head.

One moose two meese....

...One goose, two geese!

On Sunday two more little guys joined our backyard family. A member of a Yahoo! group I belonged to advertised that she had brand-new Pilgrim goslings for sale only 30 minutes south of me, so off I went!

According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Pilgrims are one of six geese breeds that are critically endangered. This means that there are "fewer than 500 breeding birds in the United States, with five or fewer primary breeding flocks (50 birds or more), and globally endangered" (from the ALBC website). Obviously I can't do much individually to change those numbers with my tiny backyard flock, but I can join the effort to conserve heritage breeds such as the Pilgrim. One of my ducks is considered threatened and another is on watch. None of the chickens I have are critically endangered, although several of them are listed as watch or recovering. In the future I plan on adding critical and threatened breeds of ducks and chickens as well.

My new babies were hatched on my great-grandmother's birthday, so her name was given to my geese. Let's call the boy "Bolick" and the girl "Ida". They are so lovey! I used a towel to wrap up one of Grandma's clocks I inherited (she had collected dozens over the years, each set to a different time so she could have continual chiming throughout the day) and they fell asleep snuggled against it. Hopefully it serves as a soothing reminder of their mama's heartbeat.

Pictures will be coming soon!

Visiting Aunt Ada

Last weekend my niece and nephews came by to “help” me with the chickens. One of their chores was to dig around and try to find some worms. Unfortunately we didn’t find any in the five or six minutes that this activity kept their attention!



Luckily for my sanity niece and nephews, I have an incredible toy known to some as a hammock. Silly me, I thought it was only for lying back, relaxing, and keeping an eye on the birds. Thank goodness for Alyssa, Aidan, and Milo*, who showed me that it could also be a climbing net, fishing boat, spider web, swing, or amusement park ride. In the space of about an hour it served all these purposes and more!



This was one of my favorite times during that day. Aidan is an active five year old with a big imagination and even more energy! It’s not normal to see him sitting down, especially when there’s an opportunity for playing Spiderman or running races. But sit he did, as he cuddled with little Devonking. If there was ever any doubt about the therapeutic or soothing benefits of animals, I think this fifteen minute period put them to rest.

*Names changed for privacy
**Family members who want more pictures--you know who you are!--email me and I'll send them to you :)

Hide and seek at the creek

A few days ago, I led the ducks to the creek at the edge of our property for the first time. They weren’t too sure of it and didn’t stay in the water very long! Then, when it was time to head back up to the yard, they decided they’d much rather hide under a labyrinth of fallen pokeberry branches. Do you know how hard it was for me to convince them to come back out? Calling didn’t work, offering wild violets (a favorite treat!) didn‘t work, and shaking a stick around their general vicinity didn’t work. Let’s just say the neighbors got a mighty great view of my mighty great rear as I headed in after them on hands and knees. I have an inkling that this might end up being a nest spot in the future, if only because it’s proven to be practically “Ada-proof”.

How to feed chickens

This is one of my little friends who loves to come visit “Miss Ada’s store” to see the baby chicks and baby ducks. He enjoys helping me feed the chickens out in the front yard. His method of food delivery is unique in that he prefers to come up behind the chickens singing “here chick here chick here chick” and then dumping a handful of feed on the unsuspecting chicken's head.

Rub a dub dub

These pictures are from the end of March. I have newer ones, but I can't find the dang cord that connects my camera to my computer! So here is a photographic journal of my duckies' first "Big Kid" bath, complete with their first impressions. What, you didn't know I spoke Duckish?!

Hmm... We're not too sure of this!


Okay, so maybe it's not too bad...


This might be kind of fun after all!


Mom might be onto something with this bath thing. Let's do this again!


Let's get a close-up on that last one, please... Gray Duck* says "Can you see me now?"



*Gray Duck needs a name. Help me come up with one by leaving your suggestions in the comments section. I'll give the winner 729 points (approximate retail value: 0.00000000001 dollars.) Here's what you need to know: we're pretty sure she's a girl, she's the smallest of the three ducklings, and she's the most timid and shy. Good luck!

Free range chickens

Over the weekend my chickies got their first trip outdoors. Boy, were they surprised to discover that it's a big, big world out there!



At first they all stayed quite close to their pen, but they gradually got a little braver...



And it didn't take long until they began doing what chickens do best.



Max says, "Hey, that looks yummy!"



My mama Ameraucauna says to stay away from her baby! Should I tell her that her "baby" is only 2 weeks younger than she is?



All in all a very fun first outing. Thank God for sunshine!

Just for fun

It's so much fun just to sit back and watch these little guys do their own thing. Why didn't anyone ever tell me that chickens would be so much fun??? (And dirty. Little buggers poop everywhere.) But the cuteness pretty much makes up for that, at least so far!


Cochin chicks having a chat


Ducks enjoying their "pond"


Here are my Golden Comet and Buff Orpington hanging out


Nosy little Ameracauna stopping by to see what's going on. She's also the troublemaker who kept us awake last night!


The Golden Comet thinks this spot makes a mighty fine roost!

All four of the teensy bantams (from left to right: Dora, Devonking, Luke, and Max)

Size comparison: Devonking next to Pecos Bill (a standard chick about the same age)


Here's Devonking next to a Barred Rock (standard) who is about 2 weeks older


Wait, where did Devonking go??? :) This young lady frequently has a bantam (or two!) under her wing. I think she'd make a good mama.


Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

New chickies

On Wednesday I drove to pick up a few chicks from a lady about an hour or so away. I intended to get five... I came home with eight. Oops! So for those keeping count, my flock now has 15 lively chickens. All eight of these have been sexed as pullets, and they are about three weeks old. They'll begin laying around August or September, so if you'd like some fresh organic eggs in a few months let me know!

These first two are barred Plymouth Rocks (also called Barred Rocks). They are now the largest of my little flock.

The flash startled them in this picture!


My two brown chickens are Ameracaunas. They will lay eggs that are some variation of blue or green. How cool is that? The first photo shows my escape artist... When I took her out to take pictures she ran off under the furniture and it ended up taking me about fifteen minutes to catch her again! She also is the one who decided that it would be fun to fly out of her box at 3:30 in the morning and then perch on the edge of the ducks' box peeping as loudly as possible. Lucky for me, our dog Melanie is quite interested in the chicken's (ahem) welfare, so she made sure to whine continuously outside the nursery door to let us know something was not right. You know, when I got these guys, I didn't expect to have 3 a.m. wake-up calls!


Here is the other, more shy Ameracauna. This picture was taken right after she flew out of my hands into the ducks' "pond". Poor little wet thing, you can tell she's miserable.


Coming up next in the chicken beauty pageant is my golden-laced Wyandotte. I have high hopes that this will be a very pretty bird! Although you can't tell it from this picture, she is smaller than the Barred Rocks and Ameracaunas. I'd say she's about the same size as Pecos Bill or maybe a bit larger.


Although at first glance this little lady looks a lot like Devonking, she is actually a standard Australorp (standard means not bantam, which are the small birds). Other than the size difference, she also has darker feet than Devonking, a black bill, and no yellow above the bill.


My last two new babies are hard to tell apart unless I'm comparing them side by side, so hopefully I'll be able to figure out who's who in these pictures! Let's see, this first picture appears to be the Golden Comet, which is a hybrid (I believe) that lays a prolific amount of eggs.


This one is a Buff Orpington, a very pretty chicken who will be all fluffy and a lovely buff shade when she feathers out.


Here's a picture of her trying to get as far away as possible from the big scary person with the flashing black box attached to her face!



So what do you think? If you're interested in seeing photos of these breeds as adults I recommend visiting www.feathersite.com.

Welcome to the Curious Chick!

Hi, and welcome to my blog! I'm Ada*, living with my husband in the southeastern United States. We've decided to expand our family somewhat untraditionally... through chickens, ducks, and goats!

We are brand-new "farmers", since it was only yesterday that we became the proud parents of seven chicks and three ducks. I wanted to keep a photo journal of their growth, and this is the best way I know how. So without further ado, meet the newest 10 members of our family!

First up we have 3 lovely--not ugly!--ducklings. The yellow one is the largest and obviously a little older than the grayish-green and black ducks. (We think those two are only a couple days old at best.) The grayish-green duck is not spraddle-legged, I think he was just not quite steady on his feet after being picked up in this picture.







Our next two babies are actually the first two we bought yesterday. They are two week old Cochin/Ameracauna/Rhode Island Red mixes that came from a lovely family that we met at a sale at the Tractor Supply Company yesterday morning. The larger of the two is on the left; he likes to fly around, although he can only go about a foot or so! (I say "he" but none of our peeps have been sexed yet so we have no way of knowing what we've got.) He also likes to perch on my outstretched hand and is quite curious. The smaller one isn't quite so sure of her flying ability yet, so she mainly just hops around. If you look closely you can see the feathers on her legs, that's the cochin in her. These two are definitely the leaders in my little flock so far, probably due to their size and "advanced age." Ha! And can I say, it just cracks me up that they're pecking around in my carpet in this picture!



The next little guy is a fluffy little Rhode Island Red (I think) that has the most perfect little peep. My nine year old brother picked him out at Tractor Supply and named him Pecos Bill, which I think is an awesome name. Hopefully he will stay a he so that no renaming is necessary!



The final four are little teensy bantams, although I have absolutely no idea what breed. My brother, niece, and two nephews each picked out one of these guys. In order of appearance, their names are Luke, Dora, Max (or Maxine if she's a girl), and DevonKing. That last one is pronounced all as one word, by the way. We had a little scare yesterday with DevonKing; we weren't sure he was going to make it as he seemed much more lethargic than the others. Luckily though he is up and pecky and perky this morning!






Aren't all my little guys just precious? I can't wait to watch them grow up! My husband will be building a coop soon, since we will also be picking up a few started pullets. Pullets are young hens, and a started pullet is one who will be laying soon. Stay tuned as we add a milk goat or two. Backyard farming, here we come!


*In the interest of privacy, I'll not be using real names on this blog. Ada is both the name of a favorite teacher, as well as that of the heroine in one of my favorite novels, "Cold Mountain."