June Hatch-A-Long

Well, we lost a perfectly healthy chickie today... 3-year old was reaching into the brooder to pick up a chick and accidentally fell in as she was trying to catch it. One poor chickie was in the wrong place at the wrong time. So we are down to 6. She feels really bad about it, but the girls got an important lesson in how fragile the chicks are. Hoping I'll have to do less reminding about rough handling after this lesson. We buried the chick under our lilac bush and my 6yo decorated a rock to put over it.

In other news, one of our chicks had curled toes and a splayed leg so I made the little bandaid 'hobbles' and chick shoes to try to straighten them out. Henny Penny was having a really hard time with her big bulky 'duck feet' at first, but is getting around much better now and started eating and drinking with the other chicks. I was really worried about her for a while, but she is doing SO much better. Today was day 2 of the chick shoes, I think I'll take them off in the morning and see how straightened out her toes are.

We also took the chicks outside for a bit today since it was so warm and they loved running around in the grass, already scratching at the ground and chasing bugs :)
 
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I am so happy! JUNE 30 I hatched 27 Dom/BPR/PReds/CuckooMarans (the hens are these breeds--Roo is Dom or rose comb CalGray) . They all hatched without help this time...Yay! They all looked exactly the same, so I was very careful to use leg bands and identify who is which for later.

I separated them according to the wing-sexing trick to see if that is accurate with such a mix. I have been told by some locals that it does work...but then all the reading I have done says it doesn't! I guess I will know soon
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I did have 2 with unabsorbed yolksac and a fleshy protrubance stuck out for several days. I lost one from the other chicks picking at it before I realized what was happening. I gave the other one a warm soak twice and used antibiotic ointment, so, thankfully, that one is doing fine...but it wasn't as noticeable as the one I lost. So, overall it was a good hatch and I am very pleased!

On a sad note, that same morning my black sex-link, Brown Bettye, lay on the floor still warm, but dead...she was not attacked by anything, but her vent had prolapsed...poor thing it just made me ill. None of her eggs hatched in the incy.
She seemed fine the previous day . She was a year old in March.... Have any of you had this sudden death with sex-link hens????
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Looking for the July hatch along. One more hatch due in a couple of days. My last hatch until next yr. Maybe forever. Been hatching a long time. Maybe I'll be done for good after these babies hatch.
 
Alright just an update ....


Well the 23 week old Pullet who hatched out her first chicks ...






is now 25 weeks old and the chicks are progressing nicely ....



Yes I had to entice them into the box with feed for the photographic opportunity of their life .....










gander007
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Well, here are the 2 early birds. They were the only ones to hatch out of the 4 that made it to Lockdown (kind of, we had to lock down on day 16/17 because one pipped that early)
Meet Buttercup and Pancake: They are best buds. They eat beside each other, they drink beside each other and they sleep beside each other. They refuse to be held one at a time, both or none. Otherwise you will have awful screatching from the brooder!








And i'd like to share my best buddy guineas... they are about 11/12 weeks old and also do everything together, as you can tell. Meet Hooty and The Blowfish(lol):







I just found some of my guineas egg's today and I believe she is going to produce me some guineas this summer ....
 

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