Breeding silkied Cochin bantams to the Standard

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I wish I could loan you Mocha, who has gone back to brooding after raising the babies she took over from Nugget.

I wish I could trust one of my other broodies to take over for her! Thus far, the three in the main coop, while spectacular broodies for their own babes, have not been welcoming of the other hens' chicks. I suppose I could try taking the little one out to Athena since she really wants to mother... but Athena also wasn't the greatest mother, so that may not work out, either, and that coop is further away from the house so less likely for me to hear if something is going wrong... My safest bet is probably just to bring the little one in to the brooder, even if it will be a pain in the butt to treat all of those chicks beforehand.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I wish I could trust one of my other broodies to take over for her! Thus far, the three in the main coop, while spectacular broodies for their own babes, have not been welcoming of the other hens' chicks. I suppose I could try taking the little one out to Athena since she really wants to mother... but Athena also wasn't the greatest mother, so that may not work out, either, and that coop is further away from the house so less likely for me to hear if something is going wrong... My safest bet is probably just to bring the little one in to the brooder, even if it will be a pain in the butt to treat all of those chicks beforehand.

Offer it to Athena and watch for a short while. If anything seems nervous after that time, take it to the brooder. I have a white phoenix that does the same thing. She had a head injury from a raccoon though, and I think that messed with her broody knowledge since she tries to wean way too early

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

None of my birds have any such excuses, they're just being terrible mothers. I can give it a shot with Athena, though, and see what happens. So far, it seems like Wash has settled back into mothering the little one, so we might be back to okay, at least for now. I don't think baby is at any risk of dying from neglect or anything either way, as it's warm enough she should be okay for a little while if her mama takes off again.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Wash is doing much better with her baby. The only thing that changed was me giving her access to a nest box the other night. So I guess she wanted to sleep in a nest with her baby or else she was ready to abandon her?? Either way, I'm happy with how she's done the past 24 hours with the little one. Hopefully she keeps that up.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Yesterday afternoon, Wash was out of the fenced area again and her baby was crying and crying for her. I thought, welp, this is it, she used all her chances. So I went in to pick up baby and take her somewhere else. But the little one was so loud about not wanting me to pick her up that Wash came rushing back over as if to protect her. I opened the fence and let baby out, and Wash and baby spent the rest of the afternoon together with the flock. I wouldn't say she's a gold star mama, but she did pretty well at least! And in the evening, she and baby went to a nest box to sleep.

Today, they're still out and seem to be doing well, though baby doesn't seem to be able to tell her mama from the other two hens in the corner coop flock, so whenever they are separated by a few feet or so, baby panics and peeps. Wash seems to be being attentive to this and clucking for her when she hears this. She's also sitting for her to warm, and showing her goodies that she finds. For now, I think we're okay.

Mama and baby have been sitting on a log together preening, cute pictures incoming from that, but first a funny. Baby decided to go under Wash to warm up, and Wash was settling down for her to warm up when she must have bumped the baby or something. The little one came shooting out from under Wash's butt just as big, tough Pete was walking by behind her, and Pete sprang in the air like a scaredy cat being surprised by something! I about died laughing!!

Anyway cute pictures of Wash and baby preening together.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

So, to give the youngest babies exposure to coccidia early, when I moved them to the bigger brooder, I didn't clean it out all the way so some of the droppings from the previous batch were still in there for them to be exposed to. I felt like that was maybe not enough after the coccidiosis outbreak a few weeks ago, so I went ahead and got them a palm-sized chunk of dry soil from the chicken yard either yesterday or the day before so that they could peck at that as well. Well, today there are bloody droppings in the brooder again. So, the youngest babes are on amprolium now. I don't remember ever having so much trouble with coccidiosis here before! Must just be because we've been having such wet weather. There have been no issues with any of the chicks with broody mamas at least.


Oh, and one of Athena's pullets excitedly flew out of the coop this morning and let out a squawk of a crow! Only the second time I have ever had such a young pullet crow here, but far from the first crowing female I've had in my time. I seem to draw them in for some reason!

 

[NanaK]

I have a 9yr old hen named Dixie. She doesn't get around all that good so sometimes she gets to come inside the house. She is so easy to handle and has her own little apartment (large bin). She was always a great broody and raised lots of chicks. Never gave me any slack about handling them either. She even still lays some beautiful blue eggs with a great shell. She laid about 30 this spring! I suppose you have figured out she is special to me.

Anyway, she was inside her bin early one morning. Just sitting quietly.
Hubby and I were talking and having coffee. The sun was coming up so I opened the blinds like every morning. When the sun broke through the window Dixie stood up and crowed!

At first I thought she was having some kind of problem! I looked at her and said "Dixie?????"

Hubby came over and said SHE CROWED???

We busted out laughing!

She has never crowed again.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Haha, I've had a few of those, too! It's somehow even still always a surprise to me when someone new decides to let out a crow at random!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Amaretto, one of the Silkie mixes that hatched chicks, started laying again about two weeks ago, and since then she's been less and less interested in taking care of her brood, even running off to free-range a few times within the past week or so and ignoring their cries looking for her. Well, they're old enough they should be fine, about 6 weeks old now, and they seemed to be doing okay in the flock despite this, so I wasn't too worried about it. A couple days ago I noticed my old Red Dorking hen, Perdita, chirping for them, though they ignored her and kept their distance like they do with all of the adults. Perdita goes broody occasionally, but she has a deformed leg that she can't put any weight on or bend, so she can't exactly incubate eggs or brood tiny, newly-hatched chicks because she's likely to crush them. Because of that, I've never let her hatch or raise chicks.

I went out just now to let the birds out for their afternoon free-range, and as the flock hurried off to forage, I heard Perdi chirping again. I looked her way just in time to see Amaretto's three babies rushing to her and her feeding them whatever morsel it was that she'd found. My heart! I adore my silkied Cochins of course, but this is exactly why the Dorkings still remain my absolute favorite breed--they are simply the sweetest and most gentle birds I've ever known!

Perdita and her new brood:

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The latest coccidiosis outbreak seems to have resolved. No bloody droppings in the brooder for a couple days now. Phew!

The bad news is that I think I won the cockerel lottery with that last batch. I noticed when I was checking on them today that 7 of the 9 have rather suspicious combs already. Guess I'll be getting a lot of practice at making soup this winter. I can't imagine I'll be able to find homes for all these boys! I'll probably have to have the current oldest cockerels processed pretty soon to make space. I've had no luck finding anyone who wants my extras, even paired up with a pullet.

The six in the second to last batch are an even split of girls and boys, though, and I think the birthday baby is a pullet, too! She's getting more and more confident with her mama actually taking care of her, though she does still get very noisy any time Wash gets too far away from her. Perdi and her three are doing well, too, and of course Peanut Butter and Marka as well. I figured Marka would have dumped her three by now, them being nearly 10 weeks old now, but she still leads them around and tries to tuck all three of them under her every night! PB's babes aren't far behind, either, and still being doted on by their mama. Guess those two just have a hard time cutting the apron strings.

I'll have to try to get some pictures of some of them soon--it's been entirely too long since I had pictures of any of the growouts to post!