i love my new baby chicks!

[krisendaaves]

i am having such a good time watching our new baby chicks! they are so cute and precious! within the last two days there has been a new behavioural development. when one picks up a bit of pine shaving in her beak, the others begin to chase her, and so she starts running from everybody, and they all are chirping loudly. so i go over to see if anything is wrong, and find them playing this game of 'chase the one with the pine chip' ha. i believe they think that their friend has a piece of food, and they are trying to take it from her. when i open their enclosure to feed them, or change their water, or check on them, they all come rushing over to me at once. it's just so sweet. their little inquisitive faces are so cute. and the feathers on georgia's feet just kill me with cuteness! does this mean that she is definitively a brahma? i'm not able to determine their gender, so i still have that big question. if i knew, i could take the males back and exchange them for females, while they are still only a week and a half old. the four that we know are females, all have wings reaching in length all the way out to their tails. and i noticed that one of our two barred rocks has noticeably longer wings than the other. and we have two who are completely yellow. one is from the four that were sexed before we purchased them, so she's female, and the other yellow one's wings are considerably shorter~they don't make it anywhere near out to the tail. and he's our wild, skittish, aggressive one. anyway, i thought i might be on to something. i heard something about being able to tell their gender by differences in their vents. i have been checking them for pasty butt, so i think i could figure it out if i knew what to look for. the internet has not been as helpful on this as i thought it would be. i know everyone's busy, but if you could write to me, i would be really happy to read stories, pointers, advice, and i love looking at all of the photos on here. oh, and i'm still not sure if the four little amber coloured ones with the chipmunk stripes/markings on their backs/wings are rhode island reds, or some other breed. we have looked on the computer for chick photos (if you aren't ultra specific, it will pull up pics of young girls~ha) to compare them with, and they are very similar, but our chicks are not as red/dark. anyway, i hope y'all all have a good day with your flocks.

 

[teach1rusl]

Chicks can be quite addicting, can't they???

They're very much like children - it's fun to watch their personalities develop as they mature into adults. If you pay a lot of attention to your flock, you'll know each chicken's distinct personality, you'll know who laid which egg (even if you have several brown egg layers), and even each chicken's "voice."
Vent sexing is really an art - I'd never try it myself. It has to be done those first few days, and even the experts get it wrong sometimes. Your barred rocks are easier...by the white spot on the head, and then of course males will feather in much whiter looking than females. I think you have to have 10 or 20 posts before you can post pictures. So go comment on others' threads, and then post pics of your chicks in the gender section - we may be able to help you sex them...

 

[Ilovemyduckies]

That is so cute! One of my chicks are getting to the age where she likes to use her wings. I emptied the duck pond and put them in it to feed them some bugs. I put a warm in there, and she grabbed it, then started running around. She was like "AH, where do I hide?" so she jumped out and ate it by the pond and them went back in. They are so cute