cochin bantam silkies

[meadow007]

first of all, we have been raising chickens for about a year and everytme we have a question we google it and backyard chickens is always the website we end up at for answers. you're a wealth of info. NOW, we only started hatching babies about a month ago. some are in the incubator and later the brooder, but we had 3 hens go broody (2 game and 1 bard rock (SP>?). we put several different eggs under the broody hens, but the bantam silkies chicks havn't fared so well.

we've lost 3 so far (2 just this morning right after they hatched because one hen apparently got out of the box for food and got back in the wrong box....a fight followed and 2 babies were squashed we just put a large box inside the coop for the hens and chicks to be seperated. it's worked until now.

my question is this, the cochin babies are a little different....they don't stand up like the game, dominique, etc. i assume they will in a few days, but they don't now. is this normal? is there a special way to care for this breed? the hen didn't go broody, but would she care for the babies? i took one out last night and brought it inside the house in it's own brooder and it is doing much better, thought i didn't expect it to live thru the night...the hen that hatched it kicked it behind her. i'm not sure if she tried to kill it or if she was just scratching.

 

[Big dreams]

Maybe if you do a search on the byc for "cochin bantam chicks" and broody hens, you will find something, but I am sure someone here knows the answer and will be along shortly to help you.

 

[jimnjay]

It is very unusual for a hen that has not been setting on eggs or just hatched eggs to take babies and raise them. Cochins and Silkies need nothing different than the other chickens I have hatched. Some chicks do get off to a slower start and they could be due to the temperature in the brooder or the length of time it took them to complete the hatching process. If they are not up and running around after 24 hours I would be surprised and probably pretty worried that something is not right with them. Make sure to give them a bit of sugar in the water if you do not have any Vitamin and Electrolytes. That give them a little jump start.

 

[meadow007]

out of a little over 60 chicks we have only lost 5, and 4 of them were the cochin. out of those 4, 3 were to inury...because they don't stand up. the other chicks have just their feet on the ground and these have part of their legs on the ground also.... i know that sounds stupid, but it's the best i can do for an explanation.

this is out first time to actually hatch any, and so far, it's been our only problem.

 

[meadow007]

i think it would help if i posted a pic... i'll do that shortly. i did give sugar water to the one i brought in last night, it's doing fine other than not getting around very well. i'm not exactly sure when it hatched, but it was dry when i brought it in.

 

[meadow007]

the baby


the rooster


i hope that worked... if so, you can see that the rooster has short legs and doesn't stand as tall as other chickens. the baby can get around a little but not as quickly as the others and therefore they tend to get stampeded.

when i went out to check on them one of the game hens was just running the other game out of her box, then got out of the box with HER chicks and in the wrong one...AGAIN. i'm gonna separate them, she refuses to behave. one or the other of them had knocked one of the cochins over and it was just laying there on it's back. the other chicks just run all over them, and they can't get out of the way.

i'm starting to think it's just the short legs? or rather their short legs and the fact that i have them with taller chicks. can i keep them inside for about 2 days and then return them? will she take them back? do hens kill babies or will she just ignore it?

one more thing...what do y'all use to put on the floor? i used pine straw to begin with and we've had a TON of rain this past week.. we've discovered we have to divert the water away from the pens. we normally use wood shavings, but is there anything better? we put pine straw and/or hay in the nests to begin with, but the shavings seem alot cleaner.