Adventures with Chicks (pt. 1)

With the loss of our layer, we decided we would purchase baby chicks. We only needed one hen, but chicks need companionship. Chicks also might grow up to have unpleasant temperaments. Due to this, we actually purchased not just a few, but nine baby chicks!

On the way home from the hatchery (super bright light outside, too!)

Bobble wanted a hen that would lay blue or green eggs (an easter egger [EE]), Squiggle wanted a bird that would be all-white, and I wanted a blue bird (blue or lavender are really a pretty gray in the chicken world). This was going to be challenging since the birds were all together, unlabeled at the hatchery!

All but one of our new chicks (the missing one was drinking water)

I read up on the chick breeds the hatchery had available at some point during the year, and studied the chicks that would grow to be what the kids wanted. I am pretty confident we succeeded in getting all the requirements met! Bobble's EE can be seen in the bottom right of the above picture.

Our blue/lavender chicks

Our white chicks (possible buff on the right)

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for all content of this post. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own. All chicks were purchased by me.

Hoot Owl Hoot! (game review)

Another great cooperative game is Hoot Owl Hoot! by Peaceable Kingdom. This game involves more strategizing than Count Your Chickens! does, and the way the game is set up encourages the players to work together.

Like Count Your Chickens!, Hoot Owl Hoot! has the instructions printed on the inside of the box lid. Not only does this prevent you from losing them, but it saves trees, too!

 

The game comes with the game board, a pile of cards with different coloured circles or suns on them, a sun token, and 6 owl tokens. 

To set up the game, you shuffle all the cards and deal three to each player. You place your owls on the start spots (number of owls played with vary depending on the difficulty level you want), and the sun token on the sun start spot. The goal of the game is to get all the baby owls back to the nest before sunrise.

While you can hold your cards in your hand, it is suggested to leave them face up for everyone to see so you can work together to plan the best plays to get the owls back in the nest. 

When it is your turn, you pick which colour you want to play from the 3 cards in your hand. If you have a sun card, you have no choice but to play that card and move the sun token one spot over to the right), then draw a new card. If you are playing a colour, you can move any owl of your choice to the next circle with that colour. If you are playing a green card and there is an owl on the next two green spots, you would play on the first available green spot (so you’d skip a lot of spots). If there are no more spots of that colour available, the owl gets to move into the nest. This is the sort of thing that makes this game all the more fun when working as a team, and precisely why everyone being able to see the other players’ cards is beneficial.

A yellow card was played allowing the owl on the Start 4 spot to move a good distance to the next unoccupied yellow circle.

Another yellow card was played and an owl from the Start 2 position was moved 3 yellow circles because the first two were occupied.

When all the owls make it to the nest, you win. If the sun gets all the way to the far right spot (aka: if the sun rises) first, the game is over. The beginner level is only played with owls on the first 3 start spots, the intermediate level is with owls on the first 4 spots, and the challenge level is with all 6 owls in play.

Hoot Owl Hoot! is recommended for ages 4 and up, up to 4 players, and should last about 15 minutes from start to finish. No reading is required for game play (provided someone can read to explain the rules at first). Great game for colour recognition and cooperative strategizing.

You can purchase Hoot Owl Hoot! for approximately $16 at select retail stores like Target (they carry Peaceable Kingdom games), or online at Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. Hoot Owl Hoot! was purchased by me and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Introducing the roo

I never had to integrate birds into a flock before, and certainly had never introduced a single bird to an established flock. I was bound to make mistakes, and I did straight away.



I had read numerous stories where people successfully slipped a new bird in the coop after all were in for the night and roosting, and then the next morning things were great.

I tried it. It failed miserably.

They beat my little guy up. It's completely normal for them to establish their new pecking order, but they weren't letting up even after he had submitted. I had to break them up and snag him. The poor little guy was even playing dead and they were pecking him!

I brought him inside and snuggled him a little bit, and decided that I had to do it much differently. I set up a metal dog cage inside the enclosed part of my chicken coop and added a bit of cardboard to offer some protection from not only the elements, but a way to hide from the girls if they were overwhelming him.

There is still plastic on the western side of the enclosed run since weather is unpredictable here!

Each night I brought him inside since he was still young and it was dropping to freezing here. While I wouldn't have worried about him inside the coop with the other girls for warmth, by himself in a drafty cage is a different story!

After about a week of the above set up, I let him free range a bit with the girls. He wanted to be with us more than the girls...

He flew up into our window to be with us instead of the girls. Squiggle didn't mind this at all!

He tried to stay there for the night (as you can see above), but this was the night I put him back in with the girls and crossed my fingers. When I woke up, he was hiding behind the food in the enclosed run, but nobody was attacking him. The next day I found him backed against the wall of the enclosed run ready to get out with the girls all staring at him, but no fighting. I don't know where he slept that night, but I assume in the dirt again. Both nights I had the metal cage open in case he wanted to roost in the cage, but it also gave him access to the coop.

Night 3, he decided to follow the girls into the coop to roost a bit after them. They chased him out twice. A bit later, he decided to try again. This time was a success, and he roosted on the bottom of the two roosts in the coop. The next night was the same, but the girls were not all clumped together on the top bar, but rather a couple of them were right in front of him.

On the third night, I saw this:

and about 45 minutes later, this:

He still runs away when they get too close to him, but they aren't trying to hurt him anymore, and they let him roost with them.

Sadly, he won't let me near him anymore. When they would attack him before, he would fly up onto me for protection. Now he seems to be equally wary of the girls and us. I'm sad because I loved holding him, but so long as he doesn't become aggressive towards us, he won't become dinner.

He's still young, so he hasn't tried to do any of the typical male duties with the hens, but once he comes into maturity I'm sure we'll see a temperament change a bit. Hopefully he steps up as protector, and remembers that we (the humans) are family, not foes.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Count Your Chickens! (game review)

One thing we noticed when we first started playing board games with the kids was just how competitive Bobble was. That doesn’t really come as a surprise to me since I’m a very competitive person, but the display he put on when he lost a game was absurd. When he won, he’d boast and brag. I get it, he’s proud he won. Still, getting him to understand sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t was hard. The games from Peaceable Kingdom help eliminate that sort of issue.

Count YourChickens! is a cooperative game where everyone works together to win. You either all win, or you all lose. Nobody is better than anyone else in the end, so you all feel good, or you all are determined to try again to succeed as a team.

Although it might be a minor thing, I love how the instructions are on the inside of the game box. The lid contains the instructions so you can't lose them, and there isn't excess waste from adding more paper to the game packaging. Save trees, and don't lose your instructions at the same time!

Count Your Chickens! has 40 little chick chips or tokens, a mother hen game piece, a spinner, and the board. To set up, you put the mother hen at START, and you scatter the chicks all across the board (anywhere except in the coop). The goal is to get all the chicks into the coop before the mother hen gets to the coop.

Actual game play sees everyone playing as the mother hen. The players take turns spinning, and each spin determines the number of chicks placed in the coop. If you spin the cow, for example, you count the number of spaces you move to get to the next cow space. If you moved 4 spaces, you put 4 chicks in the coop. If the space you move to shows a chick atop the animal (in this instance, a chick atop a cow), you get to add one extra chick to the coop. If you land on the fox, you take a chick out of the coop and place it back on the board. If you get all the chicks in the coop before you reach the end, you win! If you don’t, better luck next time.

Bobble got a dog for the first spin, so he added 6 chicks to the coop because the first dog square was 6 spaces from the start.

The great thing about this game is that there is no singled out player, and you can use the set up to teach lessons about nature. I like that you can add story to it if you want to give a reason why the chicks should be in the coop. Maybe your kids are learning about predators, so you could pretend there was a hawk spotted. Maybe it is feeding time and the chicks need to get back, or it’s getting near dark and they need to roost. If you don’t want to, then you just have a fun game that helps children learn to count. No reading is required for this game (provided someone can explain the instructions the first time to the children).

Count Your Chickens! is for children ages 3+, for up to 4 players, and takes around 15 minutes to play start to finish. You can find Count Your Chickens! at select retail stores (Target carries Peaceable Kingdoms games) or online at Amazon.com for approximately $16.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. Count Your Chickens! was purchased by me and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

A protector for the flock

After the unfortunate event that happened with my hen and the dog up the block, I decided that my girls needed a protector. I scoured our local city ordinance and found that roosters actually aren't  prohibited here like I thought they were. In fact, there was nothing at all stating the number of chickens allowed or the sex of the chickens!

My daughter and her friend giving the hens some treats

We're not out to be the people that encourage the city to set these limits, of course, so we are quite content with our tiny backyard flock. If we can have a rooster, however, we might have some more security for our girls. 

I don't want a rooster that is going to crow all day (and night), as much for my neighbor's sanity as our own. Roosters are good protectors in that they will call the hens in if they are roaming too far away as the sun is setting (call them home to roost), they will alert them to predators in the area and let them know when it is safe to be out again, and they will fight to protect the flock. The last point could mean the sacrifice of their own life. No, I don't want another chicken death... but I'd honestly rather lose a rooster than a laying hen.

A local person was giving away two young easter egger [EE] roosters for free as she wanted only hens, so we took in two with the intention of only keeping one. We just didn't want him lonely before he got to join the flock. We planned on keeping the white and black, and gave the brown and black to a friend that was in search of an EE rooster. 

They both enjoyed their gated area, roosting on the side of the gate at night.

Sometimes they would join me at my computer!

Before you ask: yes, they both pooped on me. Yes, it was gross.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Attack (part 4)

Sadly, our hen didn’t pull through. She wasn’t eating or drinking, and so we had to force a bit of liquids in. She wasn’t moving around, either. Exactly a week after the attack, we lost her.

The kids were getting ready for school when it happened, and both had come in the room to see her before they left. She died right in front of them. They weren’t too upset, but they did have some questions as to why she was in the position she was in, why she isn’t breathing, will she get back up, etc.

R.I.P.

While the kids were gone, I cleaned up the set up and laid fresh paper. We decided we were going to get chicks! We need to replace our layer, but we also thought it would be nice to have some started chicks to offer to others if they have a similar situation. You can’t just buy a singular chick from a store, and even if you could, they need a companion. That makes it difficult to replace a hen when you only need one.

It will also be a great learning experience for all of us since we’ve never had chicks, so stay tuned to follow us on our chick adventures!

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Twister (game review)

On days where we can’t get out much, it can be hard to keep the kids active enough to exhaust them of that ridiculous amount of energy they have. Games like Twister, however, can help that.

If you haven’t played Twister before, it’s really simple. The game mat has many circles in four different colours, and there is a spinner that determines what you place where. One person spins the spinner, and it lands on commands and colours like “Left foot Red”, then everyone has to put their left foot on a red circle. You can’t share a circle with someone else, and you can’t be resting on the ground (like sitting). The fun part is getting tangled up with other people!

I remember playing Twister as a kid, and I remember having trouble with it because I am short and had trouble reaching sometimes. The kids don’t mind, though. They like that they get to play so many times in a short period. You could also implement something like “3 falls and you’re out” if they have a lot of trouble reaching. 

The new spinner

The most challenging thing about this game for Bobble is that he doesn’t know his left and right yet. Obviously it’s a 50/50 chance as to whether he gets it correct or not, but thanks to this game he is stopping and trying to think about what left or right is.

The game, like many of them, has evolved a bit since I was a kid. It is no longer only a hand or a foot on a colour, but now it has random things like “in the air” and letting the spinner call something random. Honestly, I am not a fan of these additions. I thought the game was challenging enough as it was, and it is especially not needed for really young kids. I can see it being more fun for very flexible people, like gymnasts, if you add in things like raising an arm/leg in the air, but it’s unnecessary for young kids. I just call out something random when it lands on those.

Actually, the spinner sometimes takes a long time to spin and the kids get impatient, so I tend to just call out random things without ever spinning. Also, they left the spinner out and it got stepped on (and the plastic snapped), so we sort of have to do that now, anyway.

While I find the changes to the game unnecessary, it’s easy to just not implement them. The game is easy to store, teaches directions (left and right), and colour recognition. It also helps them use up some of that seemingly endless energy!

The game is recommended for ages 6+, and that makes sense due to average height and ability to tell left from right. Still, with a bit of patience (or improvising) you can play with kids much younger.

Twister is sold for approximately $15 at most retailers.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. Twister was purchased by me and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.