Illinois...

[Faraday40]

Hey all

Last week we added some babies from the feed store. After losing my gray silkie hen to the mink. Chicken math at it's finest. Lose a bird add 11 more. Unfortunately three of the chicks were given to us because they had a rough time in shipping and we've lost three of the silkies(two we were given and one we bought)

We also bought 2 Welsummer pullets(Anyone have experience with them?) We still have 3 blue 1 black and 2 buff silkie chicks left. Straight run of course I'm dieing to know what genders I got. I hope I got a few pullets at least.

Of course now we've lost those three failure to thrives naturally we must add more right?

So every year we have a local school that hatches out our eggs and loves it. The teacher picked up 30 eggs yesterday and tonight we are also setting a hatch. The eggs that we want to keep track of the chicks, because of course I don't expect the teacher to know all about incubating and separate or mark the chicks at hatch.

Be careful of chicken math! Didn't you read my post???! LOL Setting lots of eggs in schools is nothing but trouble!

Besides, I know where you live..... You may end up with some extras suddenly appearing in your brooder!

(Just Kidding. I'd at least call first before dropping off an extra 40 chicks. )

 

[chickendreams24]

Lol DH2B might notice 40 more showing up LOL

Well they had a pretty good hatch rate last year but not perfect..

Lol now if all 60 or so eggs hatch well then I'll be sleeping in the coop lol.

Of course later I'll probably think what the heck were we thinking hatching that many but really it's just fun and the boys will make great dinners.

We ended up not going back to the feed store for more chicks and that's okay. My original girls are all planning on staying of course.

I also am thinking it's likely we'll lose some over the year(to predators and could even lose a few to Marek's) although that doesn't seem to be much of a problem.

 

[Faraday40]

Lol now if all 60 or so eggs hatch well then I'll be sleeping in the coop lol..

Great! I'd love the company. You can move in with me & all the chickens. Our neighbor always jokes that our coop has everything but air conditioning. Because the orps don't do well in excessive heat, I've been thinking about it....... LOL

 

[cavemanrich]

Great! I'd love the company. You can move in with me & all the chickens. Our neighbor always jokes that our coop has everything but air conditioning. Because the orps don't do well in excessive heat, I've been thinking about it....... LOL

I think you and Chickendreams are to the right of the photo.

 

[cavemanrich]

Yesterday I had a 80% production rate. 5 hens 4 eggs.

Note the size from my OEGH.. size of a pigeon, and egg is huge for such small bird. Bottom is a comparison of pigeon egg to hers. (pigeon egg is a decoy plastic I use in pigeon nests when controlling pigeon population)

Here she is..

 

[chickendreams24]

I think you and Chickendreams are to the right of the photo.

Lol you're going to make me pee! Lol shhhhh don't tell DH2B that. Lol

I asked DH2B how many he thought we should set. He told me he didn't care....

Now the incubator is almost maxed out... It's not my fault. I asked him.

Yesterday I had a 80% production rate. 5 hens 4 eggs.
View attachment 1356764
Note the size from my OEGH.. size of a pigeon, and egg is huge for such small bird. Bottom is a comparison of pigeon egg to hers. (pigeon egg is a decoy plastic I use in pigeon nests when controlling pigeon population)
View attachment 1356771
Here she is..
View attachment 1356773

Yeah I love my oegb. While they are so tiny they're eggs by comparison are huge!

 

[Justso]

Today I taught a couple preschool classes. DS was supposed to come along & help. (Besides getting out of school for 1+ hour, he gets to go back to see his former preschool teachers.) Then my poor kids developed sore throats last night. Neither seemed better this morning, so they both stayed home. Boy was DS disappointed! Just got back from the doc's & both have strep. UGH! At least I'm glad they stayed home to prevent spreading.

As you already know, I did a few test hatches and discovered some fertility issues with my orpingtons. So when I loaded up the 3 classroom incubators, I added plenty of extras to make up for all the clears I experienced at home. Teachers/classrooms usually have lower hatch rates anyway, so I set 4-5 doz eggs (expecting only about 1/2 of them to hatch). I just finished candling all 3 incubators. Gulp! There are 42 developing eggs!!! I think I'm going to be sleeping out in the coop when DH notices all those chicks returning here. They should hatch Tues & Wed next week. For the 1st weekend, the teachers fight over who gets to chick-sit. After that the schools return the chicks to me.

YIKES!!

 

[Faraday40]

Photo time!
Here are my 4.5 wk old seramas & OEGs
The silkied is all male now. No doubts! A week ago the comb wasn't even pink.

Noodle (the other serama) is still looking girlish. DD's fav = Very, very spoiled bird.

The 1st OEG has always looked female & still does. She may be the smallest now.

The blue OEG was the one we thought might be male. So far no definite signs either way. I can see a slightly bigger comb/wattles than the other OEG, but it is also a bigger bird (like Noodle). No color at all in comb/wattles, so it's a wait & see.

I'm so worried about these little chicks. They've been inside this whole time & today was their 1st day outside. We tried putting them with Cookie, but she was more into attacking than mothering. I've seen her come around (after all she adopted all the 3 week old silkies when we sold her 1 week old orps) I put the mini bantams inside a cage inside the tractor. They were frightened for those few hours. I then put them into the big garage brooder with 4 out of 5 silkies. The chicks got along while Cookie & remaining silkie stayed in the tractor a while. I shut the garage to limit light when I put Cookie back into the brooder for the night. She still didn't like the new chicks but she can't peck what she can't see. They are currently under the heating pad mama on one side of brooder, & Cookie has the silkies under her on the other side. I slipped the blue OEG under Cookie & all was OK. I'm hoping that when they all wake up in the morning, Cookie will forget that the chicks are new. I'll be setting an early alarm to check on them.

I feel so guilty about putting them outside, I know they're chickens and belong outside, but they are incredibly spoiled. I hope Cookie will care for them to make their flock introductions a little easier.

 

[Faraday40]

silkie chicks
I took the pics separately so I know each number is a diff chick. If anyone has gender guesses let me know. However, I've been looking at them for 4 weeks now & still have no clue.

 

[Faraday40]

DH was feeling dizzy/ill and not able to drive. We were overbooked on Sat with DS having a retreat at church & DD going to compete at the state sci fair. (She had already won at both school & regionals.)

I dislike driving & was looking forward to a nice retreat with my son, but instead we switched out plans. I got to wake up at 3:30am to be in Peoria, IL by 6:45am. It was nice to see the sunrise and have a mother-daughter day. I packed sandwiches for a picnic and we ate dinner at Cracker Barrel. DD won gold again, met a lot of nice kids, and felt good about conquering her anxiety for the day. We got home exhausted at 9:30pm.


DH & DS had fun at the retreat, but the boys being in charge of the flock was a scary thought! We currently have breeding groups, 2 home incubators, 2 broody hens, & all sorts of stuff going on. I kept stressing where to put each chicken to avoid unwanted mating, that I guess I didn't mention the obvious..... Keep the coop's chicken door open for hens to go in and lay eggs. My poor girls were locked outside from 8am until 2pm. It took DH a minute to figure out why there were no eggs in the coop. It was because there were no chickens in the coop! There were eggs outside UNDER the overhang of the nest boxes, on the shelves in the run, under a bush, and even inside the dog house! -- It's not like the dog ever goes in there. LOL We had fun Easter egg hunt this morning as we found all the eggs DH could not.