Evolution of a mystery chick. PIC HEAVY!

[hondo58]

Quote:
I may see what Louie the roo mated with her will produce if I can get up to speed on incubating and hatching eggs...

 

[Chicken Frenzie]

Quote:
The thing is....she's from a backyard breeder, not a hatchery....she is adorable though.

Oh, wow. Hmm. But yeah, cutie

 

[hondo58]

Added a photo on page 1 with the rest of the chickens.

 

[BasicallyHeather]

She is absolutely beautiful! I love that you showed us the progression of her growth and feather development...very cool!

 

[citychickx6]

She is indeed very cute and your rooster is fantastic as well!

 

[Gomes Bantams]

Would love to have a bird like that.

 

[hondo58]

Seems there was a little dispute over the nest box. Although there are 4 boxes the hens all want to lay in the same box. Since one of the hens was already in there Elkie decided to let the whole world know she wanted to get in there ASAP!

 

[hondo58]

Here's another video shot at the same time.

 

[hondo58]

Elkie got attacked by a hawk on 2/21/12. We found Louie the rooster crowing like crazy but no hens to be found anywhere. After finding one EE and one White Plymouth Rock under the stairs inside our barn we started looking around the paddock. A pile of feathers greeted us with a little white carcass with obvious wounds hunkered down into the briars. I thought I saw motion but nevertheless I wanted to remove her if indeed she was dead. As I parted the briars she surprised me by popping up and racing over to Louie. She had a massive wound at the base of her tail but it didn't seem to stop her. The other hens appeared from various hiding places and all were reunited with Louie once they sensed it was safe to come out. Poor little thing didn't seem too bothered by the gash and missing feathers as she has laid an egg each day since. The wound is rapidly healing and she is on antibiotics as a precaution. They weren't allowed to free range on 2/22 but yesterday they were out and it was evident that they weren't taking any chances roaming around in the open as they stayed under cover all day. Whew....that was too close.

 

[hondo58]

Elkie went broody on the same day that we hatched 7 chicks in our home made incubator. Since she had just survived a hawk attack we thought it would be safe for her to stay in the nest box for awhile. She was sitting on 2 of the eggs from our White Plymouth Rock hens. In the batch of 7 that we hatched in the incubator none were from the White Plymouth Rocks as none of the 5 eggs from those hens were fertile. We thought the chances of these not being fertile were pretty good and that she could just sit on them and recover from the attack. After a week I candled the eggs and nothing was happening but I didn't want her to start roaming with the others just yet so I replaced the 3 eggs with 2 new ones. True to form I just went out and this is what I saw.

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