P2 is a private farm and sanctuary for non-threatening, Florida woodland animals. We're surrounded by the sound of construction and loss of natural habitat for birds, reptiles and creatures of all sort. Our goal is to provide a natural habitat for them to find respite amid the changing landscape and share the journey with you.
UPDATE: The coops have been renumbered, to make them more orderly, progressing from one through seven in physical order. The renumbering makes this post difficult to understand. We have tested "Frizzle" with various hens but ultimately we bought him three ISA standard size hens, Iris, Sparkle and Angel.
Little Tom and Marilyn moved in with Dusty and company.
Fritz did turn out to be very lucky getting his three ladies to keep an eye on and look after. Dusty ended up with the single largest flock. Read on to discover more.
Here they are, it's the Powder Puff gang. Things were several things I noticed this week. In spite of having no relationship these little hens are forming a family. When one is not there they begin peeping.
If you feel the neck on one of these babies, underneath all that fluff their real neck is only about 1/4" in diameter, it's really small.
These little puffs weigh almost nothing. Every night I put them to bed, one by one so I get to feel them at least once a day and they are so light and fluffy, it's amazing.
These little birds still like to be under their heat lamp. Third week of age means they can tolerate 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
On Monday, the first day of her third week of life little "Boo" flew out of the coop. Mary heard some loud peeping out on the porch and we went out to find Boo cowering in a corner, terrified.
The babies have now had two different outings to the atrium garden. The first time they just huddled together and said "W O W".
On their second outing the baby puffs decided to "dust bathe". Two weeks plus one day old with zero instruction, they love dust bathing.
Their little wings are coming out fast and furious. The silkies are not good fliers at all but Boo is proving she can get some air.
On their first outing the little hens got tired after about 10 minutes away from the brooder box.
On their second outing the hens had a blast licking plant leaves, tugging on blades of grass and having a little bath in the rich Florida sandy gravel and muck.
Our latest little flock is growing like weeds, they're more than double their original size when they arrived here just over two weeks ago.
On an old tree stump, I discovered a fun new fungus or mushroom... and I can't identify it. It looks like white potato chips. It seems that every year or so we have a new fungus appear (likely from spores from years ago). A few years ago it was dog vomit everywhere on mulch. Then it was years of stink weed (ewwwwww). And now, potato chips :D
These pictures are from August 2021 when we had the "Lovebirds" on the porch. We had separated them from the rest of Flock 2 when they were getting picked on. This separation was a prelude to them getting paired with Frizzle (he loves them SO MUCH).
This glamour photo shoot wasn't here on the blog yet, so here it is. They are SO GORGEOUS!
We were not expecting this to happen until the first of August. In our kitchen sipping coffee and watching the day unfold, then, all of a sudden, they stormed the place, BABY PEAFOWL!
I did what anyone would do, I grabbed my phone and started shooting video of them.
(SIX) DAY-OLD WHITE SILKIE HENS AND ONE DAY-OLD BELGIAN BLUE
We ordered this group of hens back around the beginning of May but had to wait for them to hatch. The one Belgian Blue is a replacement for a dud we received in our previous order (nuff said 'bout that).
They came out of their eggs Sunday June 5th, got shoved in a box Monday June 6th and shipped Overnight from Myer Hatchery in Cleveland Ohio to us in Melbourne Florida. We got a call Tuesday morning around 11am from the West Melbourne Post Office. The lady on the phone was super-excited to tell us our baby chickens had arrived. We leaped into action and in less than half an hour the new babies were at P2 and relaxing in their new suite (aka Brooder Box).
We put the brooder together the previous Friday so we'd have everything in readiness for the new girls to arrive. Here is the unboxing, thankfully everyone arrived ALIVE!
We've been shooting videos and photos as fast as we can because these little girls will grow so fast. Just two days out of the egg the little Belgian Blue is already showing wing tip feathers. At four days old they'll be double their original size.
The egg in one of the videos is just for size reference, this is a Bantam chicken egg, approximately the same size egg our birds came from.
The new babies were so glad to finally be home. It's traumatic to come out of your egg and jump on an overnight flight, they were exhausted and napped frequently Tuesday afternoon. We put them to bed around 8pm Tuesday night and they all slept for 12-hours straight.
BANTAM EGG SHOWN FOR SIZE REFERENCE ONLY
We had stormy weather on Wednesday and were swarming in wild Peafowl when I was shooting videos and photos. The new babies seemed unfazed by the thunder, Peafowl and various rooster calls in the air. The peeping from baby chickens is so sweet and this time of their life passes all too quickly. They go from peeping to their quiet "chortling" conversations very quickly.
BANTAM EGG SHOWN FOR SIZE REFERENCE ONLY
PUFFS UP CLOSE
SOUND EFFECTS BY GOD!
MORE UP CLOSE AND PEEPY!
Notice how she likes being petted on the chest, even with thunderous storm in the background
PHOTOS FROM DAY ONE, TWO AND THREE
The box that brought "Teeny Hens" to P2
Naps Happen, they're walking along then, BAM, blacked out, tired
Is this OK?
More napping
Wholesale mid afternoon blackout nap (learned it from me ;-)
Under the warmth of the heat lamp, 95-105 degrees F depending on Variac setting
MEET "BOO" OUR NEW BELGIAN BLUE
Feathered feet, how cute is that?
"Boo" is the only Belgian Blue in this batch of hens
Boo will turn more lavender colored as she gets older and feathers-out, for now her little light colored beak and feet are her biggest visual clues about her difference from the other six. In Boo's eyes she's a Silkie ;-)
MEET "BLUE-GREEN", temp name lol
"P E E P !"
What a cute face. Only three days old and already looking like a star.
GLAMOUR SHOT, BLUE-GREEN :-)
THURSDAY JUNE 9TH
It's now their third day at P2, everyone has figured out the feeding dish and the water bowl. At first we had a little trouble getting them to drink but they figured it out (like all their kin that were here before them).
All the baby hens got up around 8am. They sleep in a heap under a "Mama Hen" brooder heater at night, it's a comfy chicken baby temperature of 99-degrees F under the heater. We took turns checking on the babies every 3-to-4 hours during the night just to make sure nobody staggered out, got lost and could not find their way back to the warm spot. No problems, these hens love to sleep.
DYED CHICKENS
Today, we experimented with putting food coloring on wing tips of three of the Teeny Silkies. Thus:
Green-Left, Green-Right, and Blue-Green were named temporarily. We'll watch to see how the food coloring holds up as the little peeps feather-out.
BEDTIME FOR BABY CHICKENS
I love putting the babies to bed at night. I turn off their red heat lamp and one by one put the babies under the heater. Of course one or two run back out but after several tries they realize the heat is where I'm putting them and eventually they stay in their sleeping area. In about 5-minutes the babies go from awake running all over to under Mama-hen heater, blacked out.
To get the babies to stay under the brooder heater we need to reduce the red heat lamp to minimum (chicks love red). With the light this low it's difficult to shoot video but iPhone captured the event of putting the tiny hens to bed for the night. After the camera stopped it took about 10 seconds for all peeping to cease, the group blacked out. They were suddenly in pre-warmed chip fluff with the 100 degree heat coming off the heater plate above them. It's the perfect place for teeny baby hens to spend the night dreaming of chicken stuff.
