Chickies, Chickies, Chickies!! Meet the new additions! (Pic heavy!)

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Beautiful chicks!

Off topic, unless I am very much mistaken, Hika Ma and possibly a few of the others (I think Tiwhiri too) have incorrect leg scaling. Hard to tell with the focus usually being on your lovely and healthy chicks. But I think a few have off-centre scales which indicate bad genes that shouldn't be bred on with as they lead to chicks that are spraddled due to skeletal and muscular deformity. Dunno if you were planning on breeding them though. Or if you already know and already noticed. Apologies if so.

I got some chicks from breeders with those leg scales and ended up with chicks that either did a too-far-apart pose or too-inwards pose and either way were effectively never going to be normal despite managing to get around somewhat. Their parents walked fine but had that scaling indicating their offspring were going to be deformed. The breeders don't often say why they got rid of those chicks in particular. Books say to check for straight leg scaling and discard chicks that have different scaling but don't say why... I learnt the hard way, lol. Or not lol. Still, they look great and happy, best wishes to you with yours.

These babies are destined to be beloved pets, not breeders, so there's no problem there. I had never heard of incorrect leg scaling being a problem, myself! I do want to breed true Ameraucanas one day, so I will keep that in mind for the future! Thank you.

 

[chooks4life]

All the best wishes. They're lovely. Such characters they can be!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The babies are 4 weeks old today!! I tried to get good pictures of them on my lap, but as you will see, most of them did not want to cooperate.


Hika Ma:

Huka:

Ihi:

Marama:

Po:

Rangi:

Roha:

And Tiwhiri, who would not stay on my lap long enough for her picture, and so she got to pose from the floor:

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

As you may notice from Whiri's picture, I had them on towels today instead of newspaper. They have taken to shredding and eating any newspaper they find, so I had to switch it up. Towels are working, but they do so like to pull them up and get at the carpet, as Huka kindly demonstrated.

I was getting a lot of strange looks today from these babies! Roha seems to be hitting the awkward phase now:

She has some sort of derp face going on here

Hika Ma tried to look important:

Tiwhiri just looked intense:

Then, she started to do her impression of a turkey poult:

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Hika Ma, pretending to be a mighty protector:

The lovely Huka Kairakau:

Ihi preening with Po watching carefully

Po, eying the scary, dangerous towel that someone moved!!

Rangi, on my shoulder of course.

Tiwhiri, looking lovely

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Since the babies have been scratching so much bedding out onto my floor, I was forced to fix the wall of the brooder again to keep the bedding where it belongs. This has become their favorite place to perch now.

Roha and Ihi:

Huka stretching her wings:

Ihi, who just has the sweetest face

Ihi again, preparing for takeoff:

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Marama just loves dustbathing in towels

'Towelbathing' is tiring work:

Po baby! His little eyes...

Po is such a little guy

Roha and Po on my lap. Their faces!

And finally, my little buddy Rangi, who didn't get many pictures taken of her because she spent almost the entire play time on my shoulder.

 

[Chickenfan4life]

Aw, so many great pictures! And Rangi is so cute!

 

[mischke]

Great pics congrats! I just realized with all the laying chickens we have and will have by the end of the summer(almost 40) I will have no white layers. I have always prefered brown eggs and now I realize that I will have to buy eggs for Easter

 

[TehLizardKing]

OMG! just got back from horrible hols in Cornwall and this instantly cheered me up... Hika Ma looks just like an owl when she was 'looking important' lol...ehhehehe...