Baby Chickens and Coyote Worries

I don't know if I mentioned that James the rooster is a father. Neighbors had a broody hen, so they put 4 eggs under her, fertilized by James, of course. Then, 3 weeks later, 2 eggs hatched out and the little babies went running off, so mama chicken got off the nest to chase them, and meanwhile, the other 2 that hadn't quite hatched yet, died. So mama took good care of the 2 wild little things for 3 or 4 weeks, and then we moved them over to our house. This is because Sandy felt bad that we had ended up with only 2 hens and a crazy rooster. So she figured maybe we would get more hens this way.

We brought them home Saturday night, Sept. 12. We have an old rabbit cage, so we put them in that to keep them safe from the big chickens and cats and predators and stuff. We carried them in the cage into the chicken coop, and they slept in the cage all night. In the morning, we carried them out of the coop, still in the cage, and put the cage inside the bird-net covered cold frame, inside the chicken yard.

That evening, Sunday, we went for a walk, and got back about 10 minutes after chicken bedtime. Rich headed right over to the neighbors to fetch James (which we have to do every night), and I went out to put the babies in the coop. Only they weren't in the cold frame. Then I heard peeping. They were already in the coop. They had escaped from the cold frame and found there way into the coop.

The next day, Monday, we forgot about the cold frame and just locked them in the chicken yard. Rich was home from work, and went out early afternoon to check on them. They weren't there. They had escaped and were in the tomato patch. He found where they had escaped from and fixed it, and we fixed the cold frame and used it a few more days, but more and more it was apparent that they were just ready to be "free range chickens." Rich was working at home all last week, so it worked okay. This week he had to go back into the office, so we thought about leaving them locked in the chicken yard. The logistics of keeping them in and still figuring out a way for the big ones to get into the coop to lay their eggs was too complicated, so we just decided to let them roam. As Rich said, they are probably roosters anyway! So, Monday, Tuesday and today they have roamed free with no problems. The big ones have pretty much accepted them. And amazingly enough, James has started coming home on his own. For 2 or 3 nights Rich has gone over there and when James sees him he heads over here on his own. Tonight I went out at chicken bedtime and he was already in the coop without Rich having to go over there at all.

Then, we were in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and Daryl came over to tell us that Lena Fisher (across the street) had a coyote in her yard at 9:30 this morning. So now we're all freaked. Rich is going to stay home tomorrow. Lyda's have Larry the Llama, which helps probably, and the people behind us now have horses and at least one dog, which also helps. But it is quite freaky and now we are worried about the sheep and goats, as well as chickens.

Baby chicken photos - they are having a dirt bath in the bean patch:
And here they are hanging out with Victoria hoping for some grapes to fall on the ground:












And in their safe place in the garden:
I am calling them Thing 1 and Thing 2. They will get real names when they become hens or roosters. My guess is that Thing 1 is a hen and Thing 2 is a rooster. I think the reason James has started coming home on his own is that he knows at least one of them is a rooster and he is not willing to give up his territory. It isn't because of fatherly hormones.

They are so cute and so adventuresome, it will be hard to give one up if he is a rooster. Don't know what we will do....
And did I mention that they fly? The cat sort of chases them and they fly across the yard. At night, they fly up onto the roost and up to check out the windows in the coop. They fly way more than the others did or do.