Our Flock

Perhaps we should have broken down our flock sooner.

We have :

three Australorp - one of them is a rooster that's been nice so far (all black)

three Barred Rock - one of them is a rooster that's not very nice (black and white ones)

three Buff Orpingtons - one seems a little "special" (beige/tan ones)

two Silver Laced Wyandottes (black and white ones)

one Gold Laced Wyandottes (black and tan/gold)

two Rhode Island Reds (dark brown)

two ISA brown (lighter brown)

From left:  Australorp, Buff Orp, Silver Laced x 2, Rhode Island/Australorp/Buff together, Barred Rock x2, Rhode Island

From left: Rhode Island, ISA Brown, Buff Orp, Silver Laced, Australorp rooster

In the coop from left: ISA Brown, Silver Laced, Buff Orp from behind, Australorp, Barred Rocks, Rhode Island in the dark shadow

Barred Rock in front, Buff Orpingtons giving you "the eye", and an ISA brown behind her.  The two black ones are Australorps

Success with integration

Although I had to catch each of the chicks and put them in the coop, and then had to close the door behind each one because they kept trying to escape, they were all up roosting with the big birds when I checked on them the first night. 

The second night they went in on their own. Now I just need the courage to let them free range during the day with the other birds.

Silver Laced Wyandottes, odds against me

Well, it looks like the odds are against me with the Silver Laced Wyandottes.  A couple weeks ago I tried to see if I could determine their sex based on their combs.  The brighter red and larger they are, the more likely that they are boys.  At that time, I thought I had 6 boys and 6 girls.

Today, since they are now three months old and a few are larger than NormaJean and her siblings, I decided to move them to the new coop with Clyde Jr., Silkie Sue, and the smaller hens.  After I got them all moved over, I sat down with them and started looking closer.

Silver Laced Wyndotte Freedom

Wyndotte's first taste of the outdoors

Norma jeans sits at the window giving me looks every time I get near the coop.  I know she doesn't understand why she's locked up all the time and she simply wants to go find some bugs and treats.

Since I was spending some time outside with the hens this weekend, I decided it was a good time to let the Wyndotte chicks come out of their coop and to experience the fresh air.  They are two months old this weekend and I will probably keep them separate from the big girls for another month.

The Chickies are Roosting

I heard a lot of chirping coming from the small coop when I was locking up at night and this is what I saw when I looked inside.

Perhaps they're more grown up than I though they were.

Chickie Problems

We've been wanting to move the chicks out of the basement for a few weeks, but with those frighteningly low temperatures last week, that plan had to be put on hold.  Last night we cleaned up the chick area and moved NormaJean and the babies into a smaller crate that we could take outside.  They had to be stuck in there overnight, but today I moved them out to the smaller coop.  

They'll be in there until they're old enough and big enough to be outside in a run.  I think I will need to put a heat lamp in the coop for them this week, but they should be okay otherwise.

The bad news was that I noticed two of the chicks have something wrong with their vents.  One looks much worse than the other.

I brought both of them in the house and gave them a bath in warm water.  They actually were settling in to it and closing their eyes to rest.

They weren't as happy and relaxed when I got their backs wet and cleaned off their vents.

Once we got them cleaned up, we rubbed some Preperation H on their vents as I had that from last year when we had the guinea keet with the vent issues.  We set them in a tub with hand towels while we got things ready for them and they didn't seem to mind.

For now, they're in the living room with a heating pad under the tub and a heater pointed at the tub to keep them warm and get them dried off.  They're moving around and eating and drinking, I just hope that whatever is wrong will heal itself so I can move them out with the other chicks soon.

Grow Chickies Grow

The chicks are getting bigger and have a lot more feathers now.....

Norma Jean is protective

Norma Jean is a very different mom compared to Silkie Sue.  Each time that we go down near their area in the basement she plants herself in front of the chicks and puffs herself up as large as she can.  She's definitely protective and will attempt to attack our hands in order to keep us away from her babies.  

Luckily, I was still able to get her and the babies out of their pen and into a storage tub so I could clean everything up.  She could easily have hopped right out of the tub, but she wasn't about to leave her babies.

The Chickies are doing well

We ended up having 12 chicks hatch, which is amazing.  We only had 2 bad eggs out of the 14 Silver Laced Wyandottes which I think is great odds.  All of the New Hampshire eggs were bad.  I did send an email to the seller and she said that she would send me more in the spring if I paid for the shipping.  I'm not sure if I want to do it all over again with the same seller, so we will see.

Chickies are Coming!

We candled the eggs again two nights ago and this morning it was time to take the eggs off the egg turner.  They're suppose to stop turning for the last three days before they hatch so that the chicks can get lined up and ready to pip and hatch.

I candled them this morning as I took them off the turner and set them in the incubator again and I saw signs of life in all of the Silver Laced Wyandottes, which is great news.  There were three New Hampshire eggs that were clearly bad so I pulled them out and one New Hampshire egg that I think is bad but I'm not completely sure, so I left it in the incubator but off to the side.  

 

It won't be cool to have all of the New Hampshire eggs be bad, I'm wondering if they were even fertile when they were sent to us.

The best part is that I got a video of a candling and you can see movement inside the egg.  Watch this clip and pay careful attention at about the six second mark.  I hope other people squeal with excitement like I did.

Still on Day One

When I woke up this morning I checked the incubator and it was only at 80 degrees and 80% humidity.  I got some of the water out and turned the heat up before running off to the gym.  When I came home an hour later the temperature was finally almost right!  99 degrees and 60% humidity meant I just needed to bring the humidity down.

But then I looked at the second thermometer that was inside the incubator.  It was well over 100 degrees!  The humidty gauge was obviously broken on this one, but which thermometer was right?!

Who knew eggs could cause this much stress?!

The oldest text me to say the eggs had arrived today.  I believe my response used the word "CAREFULLY" several times when I told him where to put the boxes.

When I got home there were two boxes waiting for me.  One of them was decorated so cute.

It was like opening a present.

When you want to hatch special eggs

I have promised myself several times that I would not get more birds unless they were purebred birds. I did a little research and thinking and decided that having chicks now, in the winter, would be a good idea because when they are ready to start laying in 6 months, it will be spring. The problem is that our eggs are "barnyard mixes" and local breeders have let their birds all roam together for the winter and so their eggs aren't pure bred either.

Someone recommended that I buy some on Ebay, and that is how I found myself in a bidding war for various chicken eggs tonight. I haven't been on ebay in at least 8 years!

We won 6 (or more) New Hampshire eggs from a German bloodline.  These were two of the pictures that the sellers had posted.

And we won 11 (or more) Silver Laced Wynadotte eggs from the Foley bloodline.  These were the pictures they had posted.

I can only hope that they all arrive in one piece, that I am smart enough to handle them carefully, and that between the broody hen and the incubator that we have a good hatch rate.  If we can get just half of them to survive that would be about 9 chickens, and so maybe 4 hens to add to the flock.  

I'm also planning to pick up some other chicks from a local seller next weekend.  

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