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.

Faith is determined

Faith received some treats for the holidays but we have to ration them so she doesn't get sick.  

She doesn't understand this.

Licking a bag of dog cookies?

Climbing on the chair to reach the bone on the mantle?

Grow Chickies Grow

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

Fuzzy Cows!!

A friend of mine has "fuzzy cows".  I want some.  Seeing hers did not help to decrease that desire.  

They are so freaking cute!  I just wanted to run out and hug them!

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.

My first sewing adventure

Despite my great intentions, I still haven't made anything, until now.  The coop has been very cold and the wind hasn't been making the chickens very happy so I bought some material to liven things up and I made curtains.

Just a little freezing on the farm

We had our first accumulation of snow here, and then things melted just slightly, and froze again.  It was a cold morning with a lot of ice and I'm not sure anyone on the farm has experienced this before, other than me.

A cut of hot water was needed to get into the goat pen

Every branch was draped in ice

I've been thinking about how the roof to the chicken run needs a major update and cleaning, this morning confirmed that for another icy reason.

Faith has a Play Date

Faith insists on being in the middle of everything and often seems to be comfortable in the most uncomfortable positions.  It seems like she was posing for a picture in this one.

She also had a playdate for the first time in years.

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.

I hope this never gets old

Yesterday morning, the incubator went on "lock down."  For the final three days of incubating the humidity needs to be increased and the temperature needs to remain constant.  Chicks can stay in the incubator for 24 hours after they've hatched and if they need to be removed at 24 hours because there are other eggs hatching, it needs to be done quickly.

The eggs aren't due to hatch until Friday morning and I thought they would hatch from Friday morning until Saturday during the day since they won't all hatch at the same time.

This evening, I started dinner and then went over to check the humidity and temperatures, which I tend to do several times a day.

I immediately saw a pip!

I screamed!

Then I heard it peep and I screamed again!

I searched the eggs as best as I could looking for signs of other pips and found more!

The egg on the left has a pip at the top right edge

There is a pip next to the number 2 on the 3 egg from the top

There are six eggs in all that have pipped that we can see.

Pipping is where the chick will break it's beak through the shell and create a hole.

I even took video of the eggs because you can hear them peeping at us and the eggs will rock around.  It is so amazing!

I am hoping that they will hatch before I fall asleep because I'd hate to miss it! :)

The first video is the first egg that we saw that had pipped.  It is shaking all over and just a few seconds into the clip you can hear it peeping.

In the second video I set the camera down on top of the incubator and you can hear peeping and see two eggs shaking around.

We did go downstairs to see how Norma Jean was doing with her 4 eggs and I couldn't hear anything and she still looks completely mad at us.

Her "Evil Eye" is much scarier than my own!