Black Australorp Thread

[cscvlm09]

Hello guys!

We have recently started raising Black Australorps and would love to take you along on our journey!

Since we just recently found the forum we are getting a bit of a late start but I am going to include a picture of one of the Black Autralorp chicks.

These chicks were hatched on 6/12/18. The first picture included was taken on 6/19/18 so she was exactly 7 days old. The second picture was taken on 7/21/18 so she is 40 days old.

We ordered 10 Black Australorp hens and received 12 chicks. We aren't sure of the gender of all of them yet as they seem to be hard to tell.

7 days old

40 days old

We look forward to taking you all along on this Black Australorp journey with us! Let us know if you have any questions about the chickens as we are learning a lot about them here as we go. So far, we love the nature of the chicks. We would recommend these to anyone looking for a nice docile breed of chicken.

 

[staceyj]

Congratulations they are beautiful. What fun you’ll have with them!

They are a lovely breed, very smart, and full of personality.
They are also strikingly beautiful as they mature.

May I suggest while they are babies that you NOT get into the habit of feeding a lot of treats. They are so smart they will have you wrapped around their little toe and convince you that treats =love.

Australorp are a breed that can be susceptible to fatty liver disease. We lost our precious one at 14 months of age , very suddenly. The necropsy showed a friable liver, lots of clotted blood around it (multiple hemorrhages) , and an alarming amount of thick yellow fat in her abdomen.

Sadly I admit we probably loved her to death. Treats are supposed to be no more than 10% of their diet.
I’d suggest even less in your flock.

Margaret-Tate was the tiniest chick but the boss-woman from the get-go. She was a very vocal joke teller, head hen of hilarity and flock ringleader of treats persuasion.

It broke our hearts to lose her.
I never thought I’d see my husband sob over the loss of a chicken. But he did. We all did.