I had one of my chicks get a quarter size portion of her scalp pulled off through the chicken wire barrier between my growout pen and the rest of my coop last year. I totally freaked cause I could see her skull. DH assured me that chickens were resilient and boy was he right. I brought her in the house and she was kept in a brooder of her own. I cleaned up the wound and twice daily I applied vitamin E ointment. Surprisingly to me, not only did her skin grow back, but she grew new feather shafts there too. The only reason you can see at all where she was injured these days is because a the texture of the skin is just slightly different and her feathers lay just a smidge different in that spot. Other than that, she's perfectly normal for a chicken. I call her "Chicken Little'. This is her on the right when it was cold this winter.I set 10 eggs under a first time Buff Leghorn broody. A week before hatch a 2nd Buff Leghorn joined her on the same nest, and they shared the eggs. 1st chick hatched Thursday.
Nothing Friday or Saturday.
Easter Sunday I could see 5!
Today I checked and Found 9!!!
One problem...
The moms were not sharing. I found this baby on the ground with two other chicks and one of the moms.
I put the other two babies back into the nest and tried to clean up the injured chick. Applied Rooster Booster. I assumed a predator had caused a scene, and injured the chick. When I went to return the chick one of the moms attacked it. I pulled it out and planned to add it to the brooder I have going for some of my Incubated chicks. Before I could turn around the two moms had started fighting over another chick! Right before my eyes they scalped this one too!
At this point I took them all away! Added the healthy ones to my brooder, and the two injured ones in a secure separated container.
Here are a couple of the happy chicks.
long story short. I gave her 10 eggs for the HAL. By day 21 she has hatched out 9 of the eggs. I will let you know if the last egg hatches.
Our farm in SC where DH is I am in DE for work. I did hatch to see how it would go earlier this year and successfully hatched 11 but 4 died. The remaining 7 were taken to SC by DH and doing very well. I was able to visit them last week. The death of those little fluffy healthy looking chicks was too much. Though I think ChickenCanoe may have been correct and suggesting the ventilation may have been a problem. I may regain the courage to try it again myself later this year.
What a great idea for a feed tray! Your babies are darling! So are the hens!Ron gave a better answer. I am currently spraying the crap out of that stuff on my turkey who managed to cut open ger entire chest with a big l shaped cut. So far so good.
I had a splash orphington that while he learned to call giels over never learned to tidbit. He would find food... calll..eat.. cal... the girls would get there and hed have scarfed it all.
Here are chick pics.
There water is not scary sludge it has nutri in it. And yes it is an ice cube tray feeder.
