The behavior is quite normal! Occasionally you get the odd pullet who is an instant natural at the egg thing, but mostly they have to figure it out over time. Some take longer than others to figure it out. Although quite the oddball, I did have one hen who took well over 6 months of laying to...
Corid is a thiamine blocker, which is a nutrient your hens need, not just the bugs the meds fight by depriving of it. If you don't see signs of blood in the stool I would never use Corid as a "just in case" since it does technically harm the bird, just not nearly as much as an active protozoal...
The perch, waterer stands, and a feeder prototype are getting use again with a new round of chicks.
A few other random observations:
I'm finding Creality's Hyper PLA to be somewhat more structurally resilient than the Sunlu PLA I had been using before. The Hyper PLA series has been less...
Social preening indicates trust in birds (a broader aspect of birds beyond just chickens). All of my cockerels and roosters preen me if I preen them, especially if I help them out areas they have trouble reaching themselves. Many of my hens do the same if I'm wearing a fluffy sweater or something.
You know the kind of pics I'm talking about. The ones where everything is in focus, the sun is lighting things perfectly, the birds pose for you and look at the camera, and then...someone has to go and make it weird right at the last minute.
I know I'm not the only one with these. Show me...
I badly need a rent-a-Rahab right now! Instead I've got Sasquatch and Coco doing some kind of bad-broody-club thing that's stopping Sasquatch from fully un-broodying. I'm legit having trouble managing the brooder temperatures for my poor Ameraucanas in the dingy weather my area is getting...
It's not just tube-type gravity feeders that have this kind of risk. I actually had trouble with condensation forming above feed level and dripping down on the first bucket-port feeders I built. I think it's because the lids were too tight fitting. Even though the feeder was completely...
Yeah...it was going to happen at some point. I promised my husband not to let it put me off mail order pullets since the remaining five are doing great and we were planning to get in line later this year for some exhibition-type BO pullets for next spring.
Meanwhile...the silly factor is...
Injured chicks can end up becoming the runt of the batch pretty easily, and it's not unusual for them to be wary of other birds while healing. She may still receive unwanted attention from curious other chicks on her bad side that keeps her in defensive mode. Especialy if she ends up partly or...
Sad turn of events...I lost the chick that I had hoped was just dehydrated. ☹️ It had much more serious issues than that lurking under the surface, including a herniated cervical air sac that was getting gradually worse and interferring with its crop. I was able to drain about 3ml of air from...
Aaaand it'll be brooder babies this round. That's ok; it was what I'd figured on to begin with. Sasquatch just isn't accepting them properly and it seems like 6 was too many for her. Although she didn't hurt any so far, it could have escallated easily. Her comb is bright red this morning, very...
Ok experiment ended…chicks are back in the brooder. She is not sharing food and pecks at the babies if they come out from under her too much. The pecks are accompanied by angry noises so I don’t think she realizes those are the same babies as the ones under her. I notice her comb is back to red...
Not the best results so far from this hen…she seems to tolerate most of the chicks but isn’t happy when they start wiggling a lot. Lots of wiggle still makes her do angry noises which I’ve not seen in my good broodies. There is also zero tidbitting going on; she just eats in silence. Chicks have...
...keep waking up and wanting to motor about in the dark and falling out over the edge. So just when I think it's all well and good, I hear "eeeee! *donk* WAWAWAWA" and have to go put a stray chick back under the broody because it is dark and they can't figure out to climb back in. They are...
CACKLE BABIES ARE HERE
Two more than I was expecting! Fingers crossed they all do well and that Sasquatch accepts them later today. One chick was having a bit of a rough time compared to the others shortly after going in the brooder. It's perked up more now, but I had to sit with it for a...
I must distinguish treat time from banana time with my birds. Treat time is moderately polite. But pecking order completely ceases to exist when banana is on the line. There is no time for peck. There is no time for order. There is only the desperate snapping of beaks that do not yet have banana...
This pic shows the chick’s partial herterochromia, which is also associated with chimerism. That’s not the light reflection - top and bottom halves of the iris are different colors. Pupils and light response etc is all normal and healthy in both eyes.