The Christening of the Chicks

Our little chicks are doing great. As you can see they are losing their down and we are getting a glimpse of what their coloring will be upon henhood. It's been warm enough on some days that I've taken them out from under the heat lamp and brought the out to the backyard for short stretches. They seem a little anxious being outside; for the most part they just stand, looking around.
Though not shown in the picture (not the food, anyway), I've had to elevate their food and water. They were kicking so much of the pine shavings into it they couldn't get to the food they covered, and the shavings clogged up the water- we were having to clean out the waterer every couple of hours.
Also, I think we've settled on some names.  Felix thought up both of them: the Rhode Island Red is Cheepy, and the Barred Rock is Strong Chicken.

Simulpost: Barred Rock and R.I. Red (with bonus material)

I am putting together our first ever simulpost; an event in which one post appears simultaneously on two blogs.  This idea was given to me from my memory of a "simulcast" of some bygone Olympics on different channels.  Actually, I don't really remember if that did, in fact, happen. Anyway this post will appear on Our Felix, and Los Pollos Dinamicos.

So what occasion is so big it justifies two blogs? We got two more chicks; a Barred Plymouth Rock (the black chick), and a Rhode Island Red (the red chick). Currently we are keeping the chicks in a large box in the dining room. We will keep them here for about another week before we move them into the garage. Because of the rat problem we had in the past, I built a tractor to cover the chicks' box at night when we move them to the garage. It's really just a precaution. When the chicks are a little older, we'll be able to take them out in the yard under the protection of the tractor. I'll include a picture of it in a future post.
Felix adores the chicks and has been spending a lot of time holding them or watching them.  We will know when Felix has picked up one of the chicks because the chick remaining in the box will cheep until her friend gets returned.

I don't know how Pip, Stripe, and Horace feel about the little additions, I haven't asked them.  I suppose "deal with it" is what I'd tell them if they had an issue with it.  Though my three girls are good layers, we seem to be averaging about 17 eggs a week.  We got lucky in a way in that each of them lay different color eggshells; we easily track how well each is producing.  My understanding with the two breeds we just picked up, they will produce brown eggshells, I imagine similar to Stripe.  I notice some variation in shading in each of our layer's eggs, I'm thinking that will probably make it unlikely that we will be able to distinguish the eggs.
As for names for our babies, we haven't decided yet for certain.  The Rhode Island Red, Felix considers his.  He has gone between Cheepy and Strong Chicken and may settle on both to make a very long name.  The Barred Rock is a breed I wanted to get last year but it wasn't available at that time.  I don't have any ideas though Felix had referred to her as Speedy at one time.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.
Prior to the chicks arrival, Renae emailed me a picture of what she thought would be Felix's dream of what our chicks would look like:

Pullet, You'll Be a Hen Soon

Or... they already are. Everything we were told and read explained that our chickens would probably not lay until Spring. If we wanted eggs, we would have to install a light in their coop to fool the chickens into thinking the days are long. We believed this and we were genuinely shocked when we discovered an egg. Renae went to let the chickens out to free range one early January morning and saw an odd roundish shape nestled in a nesting box. Curious about what it was she walked to the back of the coop and was delighted to see a brown egg.
Because we did some research about the chickens we got, we knew the egg had to be Stripe's, the Delaware. Very shortly after, and because Renae may have an egg allergy, I got to eat the egg. It had a brighter, and maybe a little larger, yolk than store bought eggs. It was delicious. To me, the flavor was the same as store bought eggs, just that it had more flavor.
It wasn't long after that that we found a bluish egg. As the other two hens are both Easter Eggers, we weren't sure which it was. Renae noticed that Pip was visiting the nesting boxes, and then I eventually witnessed Pip laying an egg. She was standing, though crouched, in a nesting box; I saw her backside convulse and then a quick "ba-cock" and an egg gently falls onto the pine shavings.
And finally, early February, our Horace, the one we had rooster concerns about, delivered unto us a pinkish egg. My understanding regarding Easter Eggers is that they are somewhat mutt chickens, therefore it is only a probability that they will lay bluish eggs, and that you can not absolutely predict what color the eggs will be. You will also notice that Horace and Pip look quite different, well, that is what it means to be an Easter Egger. I read that those pinkish eggs are very rare.
Because the eggs are so easy to discern from who they came, I've been keeping track of the hens egg laying. Stripe and Pip are prolific producers; about 5-6 eggs a week. Horace is about 3-4 a week. But, as Horace told me, "My eggs are pink, bitches".
The chickens have become very attached to Renae- she is their rooster. They now follow her when she comes outside and have learned to perch up on the porch railing so they could see in the back window and gaze upon Renae's eminence. This created a poop-on-the-porch problem that I wasn't to keen on. I think my solution will alleviate that:

The Infestation

That cute little adorable rat is now dead- I killed him. I had an introspective moment after doing so; it's the first time I intentionally killed something larger than a bug. I suppose I'm experiencing some ambivalence regarding it.
When I built the coop and run, I did not plan for rats; I planned for raccoons, cats, hawks, eagles, and dogs. When I first discovered the rat, I had no idea how to handle the situation, how to prepare, or the severity of the problem. I figured correctly that the rat had come in from under the coop; the only area that did not have a subterranean border. I dug this area out and and laid down chicken wire. I came out later that day to capture the above picture. I was very self-satisfied thinking I had foiled the rat and solved the problem. Later that day, I went out to check and saw that the rat had found his way inside. I sneaked up on him ninja-style and took his life. I still don't know for certain how he got in; I thought it may have been through the overlap in the chicken wire that makes up the run. I wired that overlap tight and again I was confident the rat problem would be only a memory. I was very wrong and realized that there was a colony of rats living under the coop. They dug a network of holes under the chicken wire and were stealing the chickens food. Not only were they digging under the chicken wire, but the small ones could fit through the chicken wire mesh.
I got the great idea of inventing a rat trap. Here is a picture of it. So far, it has caught nothing, though, it appears no rat has even attempted to go near it as the bait has remained untouched. I dug all along the run, about 18" deep and put in a barrier of 1/2" hardware cloth. For a couple of days this seemed to work, but then I saw that they had managed to dig under that as well.
There was more that I tried to do and I won't go into everything but I was getting disillusioned with this whole thing and even briefly considered getting rid of the chickens. Eventually I dug out the entire run and laid down hardware cloth, attaching it to the run walls. So far it seems to have worked, though I'm not convinced; we still leave no food in the coop overnight.
Another problem we were having has to do with rain. The run became nothing more than a big mud pit. It was a precarious adventure just walking in there it was so slick. To relieve this, I attached a tarp to the garage wall (which the run and coop border)above the run and stretched it across the chicken wire roof and affixed it to the side of the run. This has worked great but blocks out the sun on nice days. I solved this by running 3/8" x 10' rebar through the eyelets at the bottom of the tarp. I can now use the end of the rebar I can reach to lift and fold back the tarp.