You may remember in an earlier post that we started our homestead this year in January with four Buff Orpington chicks. We named them Giantess, Goldie, Lady, and Mini.

Since the first day we brought them home, I felt that Giantess maybe a rooster instead of a hen. She seemed very protective. For me and my belief, I would compare it to the role of a godly husband. I have included one of our YouTube videos if you are interested in seeing them the day we purchased them.

Why Giantess? We named her Giantess because she was the largest chick in the group. When we picked up the additional nine chicks in February, Giantess was still the largest. She established the pecking order amongst the entire flock of thirteen. Giantess was the first to get sick. Since we are new at this we posted a video on our Facebook page to see if anyone could help. Additionally, we researched what we could do in the meantime. We saved her; however, we lost three others to this similar illness. She is one tough bird!

When we started our homestead, we planned to have hens only for one reason; to save money on eggs. Buying four eighteen-pack cartons of eggs a month is costly. Eggs are beneficial in keeping the Crazy One’s blood sugar level low. With the production of eggs on the homestead, we save money not only in purchase cost but also in fuel cost. A con to reproduction at this stage is the creation of unnecessary stress to complete projects in preparation for the hatching of chicks. The purpose of our homestead is to produce our own food saving money in a minimally stressful environment.

With that being said, just this week we found Giantess is a rooster. Plain Crazy heard Giantess crowing, told us about it, and then we saw it. She beefed up her chest, opened her mouth, and out came a crow. It wasn’t quite like the adult “Cocka-Doodle Doo”, but we knew that we would have to get rid of her. I’m a city girl, I have never experienced the stages of a chick growing into a hen or rooster, so I thought that was pretty cool. We hoped to get the crow on camera before returning her to Blackberry Creek Mini Farm; however, she did not crow for us again.

Here are some pictures of her the day we returned her.

Yooooooooo My Crazies,

How is everyone?

The adventure this weekend was Broody’s Post Office (our nursery coop).

With the rain, we found ourselves working on a little here and a little there. We did accomplish putting together the bracing/framework. In another weekend, we should be able to finish the rest.

Since it was raining, we did not record any action; however, I would like to share with you what would have been funnier to watch. We could have used the footage in a video that we could call “2018 Construction Fails”. We may still do that with other footage we catch during the year.

Anyway, back to the story. While Crazy Gorgeous and I were working on the rafters for the roof, I was blindsided by a true 2×4.

Yep…that’s right.

The overzealous, crazy gorgeous, woman of mine, decided to start trying to level the framing for the walls before we had a chance to screw down the rafters.

Imagine this….. a true 2×4 is sitting a good ten feet in the air on top of two other 2×4’s at each end.

When she pushed the wall, the true 2×4 came crashing down to collide with my forehead.

For all my fans out there in crazy land, no worries! It just made me a little crazier, but I am fine. Thank you for the concern.

Any who, next weekend, if it’s not raining, we may be able to catch some of this hilarious footage of us finishing Broody’s Post Office.

Until then, Love All My Crazies,

I’m the Crazy One and I’m out!

Yo,

How are my crazy people? Today I come to you to share some sad news. Friday night we lost our first baby chick. It was heartbreaking to lose such a tiny baby. she was so tiny we name her Tiny.

To keep you up to date, I will give you a quick rundown of what happened. If you have been following our progress, you are aware that a week and a half ago, we brought home nine more baby chicks. Since the addition of the nine chicks, I haven’t been feeling the best, so needless to say, I sort of slacked on my responsibility to check on them. That is no excuse because I could have saved her.

I walked over to the area we have set up for them and noticed Tiny was being squished into a corner by all of the other twelve birds. Crazy Gorgeous commented on how she was sitting. She described it as “It looks similar to the way a dog or cat would sit on the floor with the back legs forward. The difference with Tiny is that she has no front legs. “We ended up pulling her out of the area and placing her in the brooder bin to separate her. We assumed that she would recover from being squished and thought nothing more of it.

After separating her, we ran an errand and when we returned, Tiny was unresponsive and limp. Crazy Gorgeous thought she had already passed. I picked her up immediately and put her under the heat lamp to keep her warm. Once I really looked her over, I noticed she was nothing but bones. It appeared as if she had not been eating. We tried to hydrate her by filling a medicine dropper with watered down yogurt and electrolytes, similar to what we did with Giantess in our “Sick Chick with Infectious Bronchitis” video. “Sick Chick with Infectious Bronchitis”

After several attempts to nurture her back to health, she gasped her last breath and passed away in my hands. I know Tiny will not be the only baby chick we lose on this new journey. However, the heartbreak comes in the fact of knowing I could have saved her. I feel that I failed when I did not look her over better once we separated her from the rest. If she would have died because of an issue I was not able to control, I would feel better, however, that is not the case. I bear the burden of her death.

Never again, I say. Onward and upward they say. On a happier note, the other chicks appear to be healthy and crazy to escape their confinement. More videos are soon to come.

Until then,

Love all my crazies,

I’m out!

The crazy one

Good morning!

We have had these four chicks for six days now. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited we are about this adventure! Our next step is to prepare a new home for them outside. I can tell you from experience now that the day we move them outside cannot come soon enough. LOL!

Mini, the smallest chick will not stop chirping. It is a constant chirp from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. She probably even chirps in her sleep. Crazy Gorgeous and Plain Crazy think they hear Mini even when we are away from home. I can compare Mini’s chirp to a rusty ball bearing on a vehicle.

Even as I type this post, I have to remind myself not to butcher this cute baby chick yet. I may already be crazy, but this itty-bitty chick is pushing me to the point of insanity. It is definitely crazy how something so small can be so noisy! I would like to ask everyone to pray that I will be able to get the strength I need to build our first chicken coop soon.

As always, Love, The Crazy One