Henschickspups
Songster
- Apr 3, 2023
- 204
- 616
- 133
After lurking for several months, I'm excited to join!
I've been around chickens a little bit in past, and have wanted my own flock ever since. This is my first time with my own chickens. We started by hatching a few eggs from my beighbor's pastor and some ordered silkie eggs. Having done my research, we wanted 4-8 silkies, and expecting a 50% hatch rate at best, ordered 16. 13 of them hatched on Saint Patrick's Day, and even the ones that didn't look like they would pull through are thriving. The pastor's eggs hatched 1 on March 13, and holy wow, I will take a newborn with colic over a singleton chick any day of the week. Neighbor's friend gave us 18 eggs while everybody was incubating, and we set 16. 4 developed, and I unintentionally joined the easter hatch along!
And my husband picked up 7 sexed chicks at tractor supply, to guarantee we wind up with hens.
And then a coworker of my husband's gave us his 3 hens that he is terrified of 4/1.
Chicken math hit early and hard. And subtractions are planned for, as required.
The new hens (Karen, Carmen, Little Red Hen) are quarantined, and the chicks are being moved to the big kid coop in about a month. Big kid coop is approximately a quarter of our detached garage, which conveniently has more square footage than our house.
I also have 2 dogs. Our Pitbull will never be trusted with chicken access. But our muttly, who is half Great Pyranees, promoted himself to chicken guardian the day Lucky hatched. So we are going to be working with him to be a livestock guardian. Currently, he wants to know why his new friends poke him if he gets too close to the brooder.
I've been around chickens a little bit in past, and have wanted my own flock ever since. This is my first time with my own chickens. We started by hatching a few eggs from my beighbor's pastor and some ordered silkie eggs. Having done my research, we wanted 4-8 silkies, and expecting a 50% hatch rate at best, ordered 16. 13 of them hatched on Saint Patrick's Day, and even the ones that didn't look like they would pull through are thriving. The pastor's eggs hatched 1 on March 13, and holy wow, I will take a newborn with colic over a singleton chick any day of the week. Neighbor's friend gave us 18 eggs while everybody was incubating, and we set 16. 4 developed, and I unintentionally joined the easter hatch along!
And my husband picked up 7 sexed chicks at tractor supply, to guarantee we wind up with hens.
And then a coworker of my husband's gave us his 3 hens that he is terrified of 4/1.
Chicken math hit early and hard. And subtractions are planned for, as required.
The new hens (Karen, Carmen, Little Red Hen) are quarantined, and the chicks are being moved to the big kid coop in about a month. Big kid coop is approximately a quarter of our detached garage, which conveniently has more square footage than our house.
I also have 2 dogs. Our Pitbull will never be trusted with chicken access. But our muttly, who is half Great Pyranees, promoted himself to chicken guardian the day Lucky hatched. So we are going to be working with him to be a livestock guardian. Currently, he wants to know why his new friends poke him if he gets too close to the brooder.
It’s amazing how they can soon amass and creep up on you! Enjoy BYC
Make yourself at home here and welcome to our community!
