ohayitscpa
Hatching
- Apr 11, 2020
- 5
- 2
- 8
Hello all! My partner and I are first time chicken moms 
Very excited about our new babies.
We started out with 5 babies on March 21st. We got two Rhode Island Red pullets from one local feed store and then 2 Barred rock pullets and one lavender orpington chick that was straight run from a different feed store. The RIRs were clearly older than the other 3, my guess was around 1-2 weeks old. Initially, I thought the 2 BR and LO were all around the same age, but now 3 weeks later, every single chick looks to be a different age. Curious if you all agree with my age guessing on each.
Rhode Island Red #1 - based on how their feathers came in, I suspect she is the oldest. 5.5 weeks?
Rhode Island Red #2 - Only slightly younger than #1, 5 weeks? Her and the other RIR are the same size, but their feather growth has been slightly different, shes always been a little behind #1
Barred Rock #1 - 4ish weeks? Her and the other BR started out the same size, but shes about twice the size of the other BR now. Also definitely the dominant one of the group, she has been challenging the others constantly.
Barred Rock #2 - 3.5 weeks? Shes about half the size of the other BR even though they were purchased at the same time. Shes also slightly smaller than the LO now, but has had feathers way longer than the LO.
Lavender Orpington - 3.5 Weeks? In the last few days, he/she has really grown, lots of feathers coming in. Also, any guesses on sex, or way too early to tell? This chick has been very slow to develop, only had tail feathers come in a few days ago, but the comb and legs have grown a lot in the last few days, and I'm suspecting Roo
Can you tell by behavior? This chick and BR #1 have been challenging each other for dominance quite a bit.
A photo of them all together, for size comparison.
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Next, we went to Tractor Supply yesterday for horse feed and ended up caving to buying more chicks because they had several breeds that I was eyeing. We quickly realized that the employees in the store knew very little about what breeds they actually had and the chicks were also most definitely mislabeled. We picked from the bins that were supposedly all pullets, so fingers crossed they actually end up being so because we already know 1 chick out of our 8 is a gamble (The Lavender) and we don't want any Roos. Here are pictures of the 3 and my guesses for their breeds, curious to know if you all agree.
*Just wanted to add that I already know its not the best idea to get chicks from TSC. We wanted to buy from the local feed stores were we got the previous 5 from, but both of them sold out of the chicks they got this week in just hours. We checked both feed stores prior to going to TSC and they had already sold out of everything.
Labeled as a Light Brahma, but when I googled images of light brahma chicks, some looked like this one, some completely different. I noticed white cochin chicks look very similar as well. Which do you think she is?
This chick was in a case labelled white leghorns. There were other completely yellow chicks in there that looked like white leghorns, but then there were also grey and yellow chicks as well, indicating two different breeds. The TSC employee said they were Blue Orpingtons. From my googling, I thought maybe she is a Blue Andalusian, but when you look on TSCs website at what breeds they carry, they list a "Sapphire Gem" as one breed. That is a hybrid species, correct?
I wanted this one thinking it was an "Ameraucana", but then discovered through googling that its very rare to find stores that actually carry true Ameraucana's. I can't remember what the bin was labelled as, but TSCs website says they carry "Americana's", aka Easter Eggers. So she is an Easter Egger? Which is also a hybrid breed, correct?
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Sorry for the super long post. Thank you for all your help, friends!
Very excited about our new babies.We started out with 5 babies on March 21st. We got two Rhode Island Red pullets from one local feed store and then 2 Barred rock pullets and one lavender orpington chick that was straight run from a different feed store. The RIRs were clearly older than the other 3, my guess was around 1-2 weeks old. Initially, I thought the 2 BR and LO were all around the same age, but now 3 weeks later, every single chick looks to be a different age. Curious if you all agree with my age guessing on each.
Rhode Island Red #1 - based on how their feathers came in, I suspect she is the oldest. 5.5 weeks?
Rhode Island Red #2 - Only slightly younger than #1, 5 weeks? Her and the other RIR are the same size, but their feather growth has been slightly different, shes always been a little behind #1
Barred Rock #1 - 4ish weeks? Her and the other BR started out the same size, but shes about twice the size of the other BR now. Also definitely the dominant one of the group, she has been challenging the others constantly.
Barred Rock #2 - 3.5 weeks? Shes about half the size of the other BR even though they were purchased at the same time. Shes also slightly smaller than the LO now, but has had feathers way longer than the LO.
Lavender Orpington - 3.5 Weeks? In the last few days, he/she has really grown, lots of feathers coming in. Also, any guesses on sex, or way too early to tell? This chick has been very slow to develop, only had tail feathers come in a few days ago, but the comb and legs have grown a lot in the last few days, and I'm suspecting Roo
Can you tell by behavior? This chick and BR #1 have been challenging each other for dominance quite a bit.A photo of them all together, for size comparison.
---
Next, we went to Tractor Supply yesterday for horse feed and ended up caving to buying more chicks because they had several breeds that I was eyeing. We quickly realized that the employees in the store knew very little about what breeds they actually had and the chicks were also most definitely mislabeled. We picked from the bins that were supposedly all pullets, so fingers crossed they actually end up being so because we already know 1 chick out of our 8 is a gamble (The Lavender) and we don't want any Roos. Here are pictures of the 3 and my guesses for their breeds, curious to know if you all agree.
*Just wanted to add that I already know its not the best idea to get chicks from TSC. We wanted to buy from the local feed stores were we got the previous 5 from, but both of them sold out of the chicks they got this week in just hours. We checked both feed stores prior to going to TSC and they had already sold out of everything.
Labeled as a Light Brahma, but when I googled images of light brahma chicks, some looked like this one, some completely different. I noticed white cochin chicks look very similar as well. Which do you think she is?
This chick was in a case labelled white leghorns. There were other completely yellow chicks in there that looked like white leghorns, but then there were also grey and yellow chicks as well, indicating two different breeds. The TSC employee said they were Blue Orpingtons. From my googling, I thought maybe she is a Blue Andalusian, but when you look on TSCs website at what breeds they carry, they list a "Sapphire Gem" as one breed. That is a hybrid species, correct?
I wanted this one thinking it was an "Ameraucana", but then discovered through googling that its very rare to find stores that actually carry true Ameraucana's. I can't remember what the bin was labelled as, but TSCs website says they carry "Americana's", aka Easter Eggers. So she is an Easter Egger? Which is also a hybrid breed, correct?
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Sorry for the super long post. Thank you for all your help, friends!
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