Fester and his (her?) chair

Fester is the first baby of our original flock. We found one clutch of eggs last fall, and Fester was the only one to hatch. He (well, maybe "she") doesn't hang out with the main group, preferring to stay close to the house...  And his chair! (edited 09May2016 because video didn't embed)

Emus enjoying sunshine

Dinnertime for emus

Polka,  Tango, and Salsa gathered around their dinner bowl, sitting up straight like Miss Manners prefers. What good emus! And notice the elegant drape of a claw over the food bowl - our emus are stylin'! LOLOLOLOL

Kat the Chicken (and guinea) Lady

My Beloved used his quadcopter to film this, and then edited it. At the beginning, you can seen the Crazy Guinea Chase®, with Blackie, our alpha male, chasing after one of (I think) the ladies. Brownian Motion, as we say, LOLOL.

I am so blessed!

Eggs! We haz dem!

Wow, everyone is laying well: the chick-chicks are giving at least 10 eggs a day, and our three turkey hens are averaging 2 a day! We just recently found one of the Guinea nests, and collected 11 eggs. Soon, we're going to be awash with baby birds (assuming high fertility and hatch rates).

We're also getting 25 Red Ranger chicks this week to raise for meat, and then 15 turkey poults the week of 11April.

We seem to be turning in to farmers! ;-)

Here's a picture comparing the three different types of eggs:

Silly chickens...

I cleaned the coop and nest boxes on Sunday. Yesterday, our 15 ladies celebrated by giving us a dozen eggs, but today they're far more interested in seeing how many eggs they can lay in ONE (of six available) nestbox! Silly birds...

Springtime for emus!

We have absolutely GORGEOUS weather today, and Beloved Husband and Darling Daughter are letting our emu chicks explore and stretch their legs. I'm currently stuck in the office, and really am wishing I were home to enjoy family, critters, and the homestead!

Babies' parent emus

The male, in front, is Scott, who is very friendly and quite dedicated when he's incubating eggs. In back is mom - Buffy - who was far more interested in snarfing down grapes than being petted.

You can see pictures of Scott sitting on eggs while covered in snow if you go to ES Emus' Facebook page and check out posts from Dec 2015 and Jan 2016.

Chicken tractor...

...  But not the usual definition. Thing and Baby (two of our Dominique chickens) decided that DadBird needed supervision ;-)

Discovering shoes

Baby emus will check and try to eat just about everything. And at this point they were interested in my shoes!

Guineas and emus

The guineas were VERY interested in the new additions!

Baby emu enjoying the outside playpen

Our little pen for the babies definitely fit the bill. The "kids"  enjoyed being outside and exploring for about half an hour. They're back in the brooder warming up, but we're supposed to stay sunny and warm, so I think they'll get another play time later today.

Emus arrive at the Fowl Fortress!

I'm hoping to chronicle the life and times of the VERY spoiled feathered friends here at the Fowl Fortress.  Last year (2015),we welcomed 15 laying hens (5 Easter Eggers, 4 Dominiques, 2 Welsummers, 2 New Hampshires, and 2 Buff Orpingtons) and 11 guinea fowl to our property.

A few weeks after moving the pullets to their coop, the Beloved Husband decided that we needed to add Narragansett turkeys to the mix, and he ordered a dozen eggs to hatch. Sadly, only one survived, and after Solo was born, we purchased 3 more poults (one flew off to find her wild Romeo).  We ended up with one hen and two toms, so last week we purchased another two hens.

Yesterday, we went out to the Eastern Shore (the DelMarVa peninsula) and brought home these three adorable emu chicks. We are planning to post as much information as we can about all our animals, especially the emus, so others can benefit from what we learn.

First things: emu chicks are adorable and quickly make you besotted fools. They LOVE shredded kale, and as adults they consider grapes to be emu-candy (thanks to ES Emus, who sold us the chicks and who can be found on Facebook, for this info). They also have a sort of singing chirp as babies, and I will try to get video and sound up of that.