18 weeks and I still don't know what I'm looking at.

[AirwalkFarms]

Hello all.

As the title mentions I've had these birds for 18 weeks since they decided to drop by the ranch as helpless little tikes that you'll see in the first 2 photos. Im not totally sure where they came from, but there is a commercial chicken farm about 3/4 of a mile down the road from us, so that is my assumption, if it's reasonable that baby chicks could travel that far.in a short time.

But here we are, 8 chickens that I built a coop and run for, and placed them in with my flock of 5 ducks. I've since added 7 more chickens to the mix, but those were ordered and I know what they are.

But what are these chickens? My guess since the beginning has been New Hampshires or something mixed, but what do I know. I've been working under the assumption that it was going to be a combo of pullets and cockerels, but now at 18 weeks they are all the same size and shape with some minor differences. I'll post my best photos I have over the past few months and anything that you can educate me on about them would be helpful and appreciated.

6 of them have black tip feathers around their necks, 2 of them do not, but one of the 2 is possibly starting to show some now. I think 2 or 3 had their combs come in a bit earlier, but the others seems to have caught back up and now I can't tell.

Anyway, here they are. I'm not sure if I have a good picture of each one of them but they all look pretty close to the same to me.

This is where I found them. Just hanging out in the sun. Weather was probably in the low 60's that day.

After these two popped up, four more came out of the orchard about an hour later. Two more showed up 3 hours after them. Ended up finding two that didn't make it out of the orchard the next morning.

The one on the left was named Yellow Head. It was the only one that I could tell apart, but that grew out.

Kicking the compost pile around while their duck buddy supervises.

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

They're red broiler pullets. Knowing the strain is difficult but they were probably sold as "Red Broilers," "Red Rangers," or "Freedom Rangers."

 

[AmeraucanaHank]

I think new Hampshire red

 

[tn_artist]

Very likely from the commercial farm as they are all the same and it looks like their top beaks were clipped. It's often done with commercial chickens since it keeps them from injuring each other by pecking. If over crowded, they will peck. Once blood is drawn, they will continue to peck until the other bird is dead. (They usually keep pecking after it dies too)

 

[AirwalkFarms]

That's probably what it is. I know that they all seemed to have their beaks "fall off" after a short while. Almost like they were burned and then the tissue deteriorated and all of the sudden they had shorter flat faced beaks. I thought maybe they were pecking on too many rocks or something dumb. The only thing that dissuaded me from thinking they came from down the street was that when I've peeked in to their large chicken house that's closest to the road all of the chickens were much darker feathered than these, but they very well could have different breeds somewhere else in the operation.

Now if these are likely broilers, am I safe to mix my younger hens in the flock with them when time comes? Do broilers do well with other breeds? They seem to get along with my ducks just fine, but are always looking to peck on my younger birds head's through their shared fence if the younger birds hang out too close for more than a minute.

These photos are less than 2 weeks apart, and I sure didn't clip them.

Thanks for the thoughts.

 

[AirwalkFarms]

Well at just shy of 20 weeks they have started laying over the past week. The first dozen eggs have all been fairly small, and not a single one in the nesting boxes, but that's ok. Big eggs in the basket are from the ducks.