Recent content by vetaflame

Wishing you lots of luck! My TJ babies (Joey and Chilly) are 3 and 5 days old now, and doing beautifully with their adoptive Cochin mama. :)

**** it. The last chick didn't make it. It looks like she made it half out and maybe got stepped on. The shell was crushed around her and she was dead. :( I'm glad I got two healthy-looking chicks, though. They're running around the nest box. I just removed the dead chick, so maybe Lisa...

That's what I suspected, which is why I had the brooder ready and have been pulling the first hatching out during the day. But I do want Mama to raise them, so I'm afraid to take them away for too long. It may be moot anyway--the last chick is hatching!!!

I just went out to check on Lisa and make her eat and found this: Hatching day for this little girl was supposed to be tomorrow. The shell was still in the nest, with some yolk smears, and some of her feathers were still damp! I was going to put this little one in the brooder, but changed...

Well, darn it. Yes, the chick's got some crazy long primary feathers.

So, I just looked up how to sex White Leghorns. If Joey is a Leghorn and I did it right, she's a girl! Yay!

Okay. The feed store guy said it wasn't necessary, since my flock free-ranges. But if they need starter mash, stater mash they shall get!

Yesterday evening I put Joey back in with Lisa for the night. I sat and watched for quite a while, since I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to hurt him. As I watched, I saw her pecking at his beak. At first I was worried, then I realized she was grinding food into little pieces and poking...

Yay! They look just like mine!

I pulled Joey (snort!) out of the nest box today and put him in a brooder. (I think he’s male. Very strong, assertive, loud chick.) Lisa still has two eggs to hatch and they aren’t due for a couple more days, and the other girls are still climbing in with her to lay their eggs, so I’ve been...

That's Lisa's foot. The other two eggs in the nest are due to hatch Tuesday, if Lisa stays on the nest. If she doesn't, I'm going to try incubating them.

First chick pic! I know it's really blurry, but it's not that easy to get a picture of a chick under a broody hen.

IT'S HATCHING! My first TJ chick is hatching! My first chick ever! Yay!

So, another question: it's now late on Day 22, and no sign of hatching from the one egg due to hatch today. I'm wondering whether the 21 days is really accurate for chicks hatched under a broody hen, considering the constantly-changing temperature/humidity levels, compared to an...

Well, I still have three eggs today, so no more have disappeared. I'm still really bothered by the missing one. I've searched the forums here, and it seems to be a not terribly uncommon thing--and the culprit appears to usually be the broody. Ugh. Today is Day 21 for one of the eggs and Day...