I knew her final day was coming. Ever since Laura Ingalls, Tooter McGraw and Chiquita died, she was slowing down and puffed up. One day, I peeked inside the coop to check on her, and she had passed away. Not attacked by a predator or anything, but just limp in the nesting box. I will always remember her as being named after my favorite character in The Harry Potter series.

Not that long ago, three of the Bock Bock girls passed away. Laura Ingalls, Tooter McGraw, and Chiquita. we think that Laura Ingalls might have been ready , but we know that Tooter McGraw and Chiquita were attacked by a predator. It was really traumatizing to see, and so was Laura Ingalls, even though she was not attacked by anything. I thought it would be good to share this. In their honor, I decided to post these:

Ok, so do you remember that in the earlier classrooms when there were charts that looked like traffic lights with green being great and yellow being so-so and red being totally out of control? The teacher would move the clip based on how the student was acting? Well, this may not make a lot of sense to you, but what if we made one for chickens?

You’ll need:

Paint or markers of your choice of color(disclaimer: you may have to keep re- painting it or re-making it multiple times because it might get rained on)

Wood (I used one shaped like a flower which you can probably find at most art stores)

Clothes pins

A pen to write each flock member’s name on clothes pins

What you do:

Step 1: paint (or color) each peice of wood (example:)

Step 2: grab your clothes pins and start writing each of your chickens names on them in sharpie

Step 3: find a spot in your coop to hang it(of course I wouldn’t do it anywhere near the ground) (and keep the clothes pins on the chart at all times or else the chickens might eat them)

I wanted to start out by saying that Clementine and Spot, now renamed David Bowie and Fitzroy are both roosters! They fought a lot when they were babies and we had never had chicks that fought. I didn’t know at the time, but we just figured out they are roosters. Noisy’s feathers are falling out, but we can’t tell if she is molting or getting picked on. I hope she is not getting picked on, but regardless, I hope her feathers grow back. The other chickens are doing well, but they are not laying as much lately. Laura Ingalls has not been as loud as she used to, but sometimes she does still Bock like she used to. She can be loud sometimes.

So every day, we are making plans to let our girls out so they get exercise and can eat eat bugs, and they’re out right now.

We have always been kind of protective of our hens. We never let them out due to the fear of losing them to predators. But today we decided to let our chickens roam free since the chicks are getting really big and we wanted to introduce them to the big girls, so this is what we figured would work best, and so far, it’s going pretty well. I’ll let you guys know if that changes.😁😊

Even though baby chicks may or may not use these entertainment devices, it’s worth a try.

Number 1:

Put small toys in the brooder. These can include action figures or baby toys. We also put alphabet magnets in there.

Number 2:

Make them a run. We used wood and chicken wire to make ours. You can check out a beginners guide to raising chickens for ideas.

Number 3:

Give them perches for their run. You can use small logs or branches. Just make sure they aren’t too big 🎋🌲

You’re all probably wondering how it went when we put the chicks under Laura Ingalls Wilder. Well, it went pretty good. She did peck them a little bit, but we were not worried. We thought that that was just Laura’s way of being a mother hen. The chicks pecked her back, and we thought that that was just their way of being affectionate little chicks. The night we got the chicks, I was so worried that I would walk out there and find them beaten to a pulp. But, turns out that fear was unfounded. We walked out there and the chicks were all doing well. I just hope that it stays that way. In this post, you will find photos of the chicks with their broody mother.