Hello everyone!
Newbie here in Texas.
We started out with a mixed breed bunch of 10 chicks varying from 1 to 3 weeks in age (didn't realize that at first). Knew even less than I know now, which still isn't a WHOLE lot!
They lived in our bathtub in relative peace until they were a couple months old, give or take. They seemed healthy and pretty content, though there was some pecking order stuff going on, as expected. Then my husband built about 3/4 of a coop, and we put them all in there together, as they had been in the tub. I could mostly tell which were male and which were female, but didn't think it would matter as they were still pretty young. I was so wrong...
We went out of town and had a friend feeding and watering them. They started getting killed one by one, and then two in one day by the others. By the time I realized it was the females dying, there was only one (maybe two, I thought, but later heard HIM crowing!) left. She's been back in the bathtub ever since, and the "princes" are in the coop. Those are down to 3, with one having gotten some myst-serious respiratory/eye problem and so culled, and another having escaped with his new girlfriend (a neighbor's loose hen, who has clutched twice on our property now!).
Recently, we were given 15 baby Buff Orpingtons. I was so thrilled, as if I could have chosen the breeds in the beginning, that was one I would have picked! They are said to be great egg layers and meat birds and also tend to handle heat well. I hoped to expand our little flock with them when they were old enough.
These babies did well for a while, enclosed safely in the house. We did lose one as I patiently waited for my dear, hard-working husband to have time to build them a little mini coop of their own outside. They were a bit over crowded in the big laundry basket. It was sad, but I remembered that it is common to sometimes lose babies in the process of raising them.
So, the mini coop got built, and we got them into their giant (to them) penthouse with lots of ventilation. And then one died. And another. I was so sad to figure out that they were getting dehydrated; they didn't have enough water! You see, my dh had rescued an older chick we found running in little circles in our driveway. He (I've figured out it's gender now, as that tiny comb has reddened) had narrowly escaped being eaten and suffered some brain damage. Since he's older and larger than the other chicks, he eats and drinks a whole lot more. We didn't realize just how much more until they were all hot from living outside.
Since we've vastly upped their water, they've been doing well... Until this afternoon. We just found another dead chick. The only damage appears to be an eye having been pecked, most likely after its death. I'm not sure what happened there, and it makes me really sad to have lost so many chicks when we started with so few, anyway.
That having been said, I'm still hopeful that these experiences and input from all of you will help us to better take care of our chickens.
There's more going on (and I hope some of you can assist with it!), but that's the short version of our long chicken story!
Newbie here in Texas.
We started out with a mixed breed bunch of 10 chicks varying from 1 to 3 weeks in age (didn't realize that at first). Knew even less than I know now, which still isn't a WHOLE lot!
They lived in our bathtub in relative peace until they were a couple months old, give or take. They seemed healthy and pretty content, though there was some pecking order stuff going on, as expected. Then my husband built about 3/4 of a coop, and we put them all in there together, as they had been in the tub. I could mostly tell which were male and which were female, but didn't think it would matter as they were still pretty young. I was so wrong...
We went out of town and had a friend feeding and watering them. They started getting killed one by one, and then two in one day by the others. By the time I realized it was the females dying, there was only one (maybe two, I thought, but later heard HIM crowing!) left. She's been back in the bathtub ever since, and the "princes" are in the coop. Those are down to 3, with one having gotten some myst-serious respiratory/eye problem and so culled, and another having escaped with his new girlfriend (a neighbor's loose hen, who has clutched twice on our property now!).
Recently, we were given 15 baby Buff Orpingtons. I was so thrilled, as if I could have chosen the breeds in the beginning, that was one I would have picked! They are said to be great egg layers and meat birds and also tend to handle heat well. I hoped to expand our little flock with them when they were old enough.
These babies did well for a while, enclosed safely in the house. We did lose one as I patiently waited for my dear, hard-working husband to have time to build them a little mini coop of their own outside. They were a bit over crowded in the big laundry basket. It was sad, but I remembered that it is common to sometimes lose babies in the process of raising them.
So, the mini coop got built, and we got them into their giant (to them) penthouse with lots of ventilation. And then one died. And another. I was so sad to figure out that they were getting dehydrated; they didn't have enough water! You see, my dh had rescued an older chick we found running in little circles in our driveway. He (I've figured out it's gender now, as that tiny comb has reddened) had narrowly escaped being eaten and suffered some brain damage. Since he's older and larger than the other chicks, he eats and drinks a whole lot more. We didn't realize just how much more until they were all hot from living outside.
Since we've vastly upped their water, they've been doing well... Until this afternoon. We just found another dead chick. The only damage appears to be an eye having been pecked, most likely after its death. I'm not sure what happened there, and it makes me really sad to have lost so many chicks when we started with so few, anyway.
That having been said, I'm still hopeful that these experiences and input from all of you will help us to better take care of our chickens.
There's more going on (and I hope some of you can assist with it!), but that's the short version of our long chicken story!
So happy you have joined our flock.
