Silky Chick rasied along with Jidori Hen chick.. They had a Jidori Rooster chick brother till Tuesday or so but that adventurous little bird must have wandered off too far from the mother hen and gotten eaten by the cute dog or a street cat... The Owl Meet (ふくろうの会) people told me the Jidori are fighting birds so that rooster would have ended up as somebody's meal after getting big enough to cause havoc in the yard anyway. But still it would have been nice to see a happy full grown rooster for a while...
#SilkyChick #SilkyHen #JidoriChick #MiyazakiJidori #烏骨鶏雛 #烏骨鶏雌鶏 #宮崎地鶏 #地鶏雛

It's fascinating to follow the changes in the colors and patterns on the Miyazaki Jidori (or Jidokko, some sort of local heirloom bird, maybe mixed in with other heirloom) birds. These three chicks, the Silky, the Jidori rooster, and the Jidori hen all being together helps get started with comparisons. The Jidori chicks seem to grow a lot faster, and the Jidori rooster seems the most adventurous as in running around far from the mother hen. The Jidori hen was a lot more pro-active about eating the wriggling worms I threw to them.. But the Silkies seem to have preferences too. It might just be an individual taste thing, some birds like worms, some don't.. I read about research on coyote poop that seemed to show a diversity of individual tastes among coyotes.. For better or worse, not many seem to like eating feral cats, the outside cats probably need a natural predator so the wild birds and a lot of other species get a better chance of avoiding extinction. I wonder if this set up with locking the birds up at night would work with coyotes the way it tends to work with the weasels, badgers, and tanuki around here...

#SIlkyHen #JidoriChicks #SilkyChick #烏骨鶏雌鶏 #地鶏雛 #烏骨鶏雛

Now that Seven the Turkey chick is dead, Labubu the Silky Chick is my buddy. He (I'm guessing after hatching in an incubator set to the hotter turkey temperatures..) has stopped hiding under the rose bush (good bloody exercize reachind down and around there to fish him out) and taken to walking up to the door when I'm around. The problem is when I have to run out before the birds start getting onto their roosting bars or their brooding boxes for the night.. One night I couldn't find LaBubu and had to go to sleep hoping he was in with some hens in a brooding box somewhere. Might have been: didn't see him until everyone else was out.. But last night I got back and think I can hear chirping while just in the doorway. I look around under benches and between boxes and barrels and walls but can't see any birds. I shut all he other cages and boxes up for the night and till sort of hear chirping so I widen my search.. LaBubu was up on a wall beside the door wondering what kind of moron he had the bad luck to fall in with. He is not alone in such wonderment.. Well, now I know to look up too. The last time I found him after bed time he was in the corner of an extra, open brooding box, I didn't think he was capable of climbing so high. I wonder how smoothly that went, with Silkies it's easy to imagine a number of goofy fails before somethig like this works out..

#SilkyChick #LabubuTheSilky #烏骨鶏 #烏骨鶏雛 #ラブブ烏骨鶏 #烏骨鶏ラブブ

The mother hen and the three chicks are anxious to get out of their safe night box in the morning. I try to get them started on feed as soon as they get out.. Especially since the younger of the two hens brooding in that same box tends to abandon the eggs for a bit every morning. I hope the immobile, veteran brooder "Plum" always as the same eggs under her but views of the eggs in the open don't have my hopes up too high... There's another hen in a back corner of the big night cage that just went broody. I'll put some fertlizied (spermed) eggs under her tomorrow.. That way I'll know to leave big brownish eggs for 21 days or so and keep taking the newer smaller whitish eggs added to her burden by the other Silkies... Eventually the situations will arise where I can partition off a broody hen and have her hatch a few Silky eggs from another population.. Or maybe LaBuBu the Silky chick is a rooster (probably, at the high temperature that hatched Seven the Turkey at the same time..) and will get along with Pear the old roooster and I can just assume LaBuBu is fertizing at least half the eggs.. We'll see...

#地鶏雛 #宮崎地鶏雛 #宮崎地鶏雄 #宮崎地鶏雄鶏 #烏骨鶏雛 #烏骨鶏 #JidoriChick #SilkyChick #SilkyChickens #宮崎地鶏

The Heirloom breed Miyazaki Jidori rooster is most outgoing!! And a quick grower too!! He goes farthest from the mother hen and jumps around into adventures.. He's probably the most likely to be picked off by a cat, hopefull warning the others: that's probably supposed to be the male role anyway, the Swedish anthropologist Mom character in _Market Forces_ (by the _Altered Carbon_ SciFi writer) got me thinking along those lines...

#地鶏雛 #宮崎地鶏雛 #宮崎地鶏雄 #宮崎地鶏雄鶏 #烏骨鶏雛 #烏骨鶏 #JidoriChick #SilkyChick #SilkyChickens #宮崎地鶏

The place where I get the fertilized (spermed!?!??) Jidori eggs might need another rooster. This cute little guy might have somewhere to go other than people's stomachs when he gets big enough to be a fertilzing risk with the Silkies.. Though I am interested to see a few hybrid Silky/Jidori birds.. Especially if their eggs are easy to distinguish so I can let people know if they are getting a prized (for whatever reason) Silky egg or another kind...

One dream could be developing a breed that is well suited to small-yard free-range while providing enough eggs for people to be content, people with kids or some reason to need a lot of eggs for the number of chickens they feed...

#地鶏雛 #宮崎地鶏雛 #宮崎地鶏雄 #宮崎地鶏雄鶏 #烏骨鶏雛 #烏骨鶏 #JidoriChick #SilkyChick #SilkyChickens #宮崎地鶏

From October 30th, but it's fascinating to see how quickly the Miyazaki JiDori Heirloom breed rooster develops... He seems much quicker and pro-active than the hens, both the 地鶏Jidori hen chick (gold-colored and big compared) and the Silky 烏骨鶏Ukokkei chick (rooster or hen nobody knows for a while with Silkies)。。

#宮崎地鶏雄鶏 #宮崎地鶏雄 #烏骨鶏 #烏骨鶏雛 #地鶏雛
#宮崎地鶏雛 #SilkyChick #JiDoriChick

LaBuBu the Silky chick feeding alone now that same-day hatch-made Seven the Turkey is gone..

But now I'm noticing how different, interesting LaBuBu is. The egg may have come from a different farmer's market, the one with the Miyazaki Jidori eggs. I think after the Turkey eggs went into the incubater I placed in a coupe Jidori eggs along with the same place's Silky eggs... Since Turkey's require a higher temperature and hatch rates increase for roosters at higher temperatures LaBuBu is probably a rooster.

#LaBuBuTheSilky #SilkyChick #SilkyChickens #烏骨鶏 #烏骨鶏雛

LaBuBu the Silky after Seven the Turkey's death. LaBuBu seems to hide under the rose bush a lot more, before it seemed like Seven and LaBuBu spent more time by the house, under the eaves, in narrow places between the wall and various sorts of boxes and things.. Today was rainy and cold.. I hope LaBuBu is dry and warm enough. I was tempted to leave the bird in the heat lamp box but it seemed too boring.. Especially after I forgot to put the bird outside yesterday morning.. LaBuBu runs over to the feed boxes by the dog too,, But hopefully not like Seven when I'm not there and not as far into the dog's reach.. Maybe it will be ok now. Maron gets as far away from the birds as she can when the gather around the feed cans as I ready their meal.. Hopefully that urge to keep away from the birds remains when I'm not there!!!

This bird might not have enough toes to get official Silky recognition.. I read something about a toe-count standard, maybe on Wikipedia..
#SilkyChicken #SilkyChick #LaBuBuTheSilky #SilkyAndRoseBush #烏骨鶏 #烏骨鶏雛

One morning 2 or 3 chicks made their way through the wire mesh and out of the cage and were out on their own. Lucky no cats were about. The hen was all anxious and pacing inside, probably disturbing her 2 peer hens in there brooding eggs. After a busy day it's easy to forget about adjusting the mesh overlaps so the chicks can't fit through the holes. You're just glad you remembered to close up the cages at all.. Eventually some sort of more sage-like system will have to come about, like a dog that can be trusted not to eat the chicks, or a nested fencing situation.

Now that I think of it, the egg-farmer that put his dog in the chicken cages at night probably only did it for big cages with 80 adult birds. I'll have to ask him. If Maron gets knocked up I'll have to be intensive about having the puppies hanging out with chicks a lot.. Maybe I can still train Maron to live with chicks??

#BackyardChickens #SilkyHen #JidoriChick #SilkyChick #烏骨鶏雌鶏 #烏骨鶏雛 #宮崎地鶏雛