August 2 - Setting eggs today ... anyone else?

[pax12]

Duck eggs now starting to hatch and it only day 25.

 

[Hucklekree]

Now it's time for the best part pictures or rather a picture because the upload is taking forever! Hope no one is allergic to the color yellow and if you are you may want to forego because these chicks commandeered my son's catapillar truck for their photo shoot.

put on your glasses:

 

[HEChicken]

Mama hen has her brood out for their first time outdoors today. The broody coop and run consists of a 4x4x4 A-Frame coop with an attached 4x6x4 run. For the first five days, she kept them in the 4x4 coop. Yesterday she seemed to want to get outside but the chicks are too small to jump the 8" lip from indoors to out (normally there is a sliding door there but with the temps in the 90's and the whole thing secure, I took the door out). I placed a brick on each side of the lip to enable the chicks access to the outdoors and this morning she encouraged them all to come out. They're happily scratching around in the grass and dirt of their run now. I offered her some scratch and she immediately encouraged them to try it. Isn't it amazing? I've had brooder raised chicks that were 8-9 weeks old and afraid to try scratch and here are these little chicks at only a few days old, ready to try it if Mama says its okay. Took some pics - it was hard to get good pics in this set up but here is one anyway.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Quote:
Aww!! What breed are they?

~ Aspen

 

[yinepu]

14 turkey poults out of 19 shipped eggs!

one has a little bit of splay leg going on.. but doing so much better since the pic was taken

 

[Hucklekree]

Congratulations every one

Here's the other picture that took forever:

They are a homestead special ). Mothers could be a black Ameraucana, barred rock, EE, BO, RIR, NHR, Wellsummer or a black sexlink. Rooster is part silkie (way back) still has the five toes and fuzzy legs though, and part other breeds most recently a barred rock mother so he's going to throw all these black chickydoos for as long as we use him. Though some of them have interesting colors bleeding through. There are some with faint chipmunk stripes in grey too.

Here are the two I've named so far

Griz:

Bear can't tell in the picture so much but he is the fuzziest little golf ball I've ever seen:

I love raising chicks with a hen

they are so self-sufficient and cute and don't stink up the house! :lol Something just got 4 of the six that hatched out at the beginning of this month with a broody this morning. Maybe my son will get a coon skin hat for christmas this year!

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Quote:

That is an awesome hatch rate for shipped eggs!

~ Aspen

 

[HEChicken]

yinepu, congratulations - that is a great hatch rate!

Hucklekree, your chicks are gorgeous. I can definitely see how Griz got his/her name and Bear is certainly a little fluff ball. Mine probably won't get names but I love 'em all just the same. And some of my barnyard mixes are the prettiest of them all. I'm not in it to become a breeder but just to provide my family with quality eggs and the barnyard mixes do that just as well as full breeds.

My chicks are also of indeterminate breeding. I got the eggs from a local guy who says he has about 300 chickens so he couldn't tell me what breeds might be in the eggs I got. All I know is 6 of the eggs were green and 6 were brown

The day before they hatched, I had a dream that they were RIR's and now I'm wondering how I knew because several of them are looking remarkably like....RIR chicks.

 

[chittyn]

put 6 in on wednesday

hope they hatch !

 

[HEChicken]

So how are everyone's chicks doing? Should be feathering out nicely by now, yes? My broody was in a small broody coop and run for the first couple of weeks, which kept the chicks safe from dogs, cat and the rest of the flock but Mama Hen had serious cabin fever and wanted out of there so I finally started letting her out with her brood a few days ago, when the chicks turned 2 weeks old. One of the first things she did was lead them to her favorite dust bathing spot and the contented sounds she was making as she bathed were just what I would imagine a person doing, who hadn't showered in six weeks. The chicks soon got in on the action and had a grand time bathing in the dust. Mama Hen is doing a great job of protecting her brood from the rest of the flock, and we're keeping the cat and dogs in while she is out so she doesn't have to worry about them at all. Anyway, here is a pic from a couple of days ago.