Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[savannahm0m]

Feathered legs = Marans


The one on the right is a Speckled Sussex, I am almost positive. We have one at this exact stage.

My friend and I split an order of Meyers chicks. My order included an Easter Egger and a Speckled Sussex. We mistook our EE for the Sussex for the first week until we noticed she had puffy cheeks and green legs. Turned out my friend had the SS, thinking it was an EE, except she had pink legs. We switched them without incident (it had only been a week), but before we switched them, we sent comparison shots to Megan at Meyers, and she confirmed.

 

[NotableNancy]

We started on the nest boxes today. We are trying to use scrap wood plus wood from old cabinets, so they're not very pretty, but I am going to paint them all one color soon. They'll be going from 4 to 8 boxes so they should be happy. We have one roost cut and picking up more wood possibly tomorrow for some more roosts, plus linoleum for the floor too. It's so nice to work with a building that already has four walls, a non leaky roof and a floor. So different then our first coop.

I missed this yesterday... super job! So excited for you!!

 

[NanaLynn]

I'm so frustrated. Chicks just don't seem to do well in this house! I thought maybe it was our brooder last year but with two new brooders in two different rooms in the house, I can rule that out. We lost another chick this morning (the last weak one from the start) and a seemingly healthy one just became lethargic and won't eat/drink. This is the same thing that happened last year. I treated for cocci last year just in case and it didn't change the outcome.
One brooder has the eco glow, the other has a lamp. The chicks run around like the temp is good, no huddling and no avoiding the lamp/brooder. They have food and clean water (changed multiple times a day with vitamins added). Their brooders are cleaned every couple days.
I can't figure out why we are losing so many. A few I could tell wouldn't make it as soon as we took them out of the box but the one today seemed fine the whole week. Very frustrating. I have tried force feeding them but it doesn't help our maybe it helps them last a day or two extra but it never gets them to improve. I hope we have better luck with any chicks we hatch! I wonder if there is something in the house that any chick with a weakness just can't handle? Problem with that theory is we seem to do fine with the feed store chicks, only lost 1 out of 9 of those compared to 7 out of 25 of the shipped chicks.

Do you feed them medicated feed?

When I have chicks, I also put some of the older chickens deep litter in with them within the first few days. My understanding is that it helps their immune systems by getting some of the good bacteria and stuff, like they do when they are with their moms. They actually eat their mothers poop a little when they are raised by their mom. Sounds gross, but guess it's the natural thing to do.

The last two orders I got, I withheld food for a few hours and made sure they were drinking well before I gave them food. I also gave them wet food with a few drops of unpasturized apple cider vinegar with the mother. The Walmart here has the Heinz brand. Plus I add the powdered electrolytes from Meyer's to their water for the 1st week. The ACV with the mother is supposed to help their digestion, immune system, etc.

The last batch of chicks I had I only did the medicated feed for a week then change to regular chick starter and they did fine.

I had one from the last 16 die in a few hours of delivery and one CW that had wry neck but recovered after a little separation time and droplets of electrolytes.

I expected to have more losses with all my orders, that's one reason I ended up with too many chickens now. You may be doing a lot of this already, but trying to help, I am new at this too. I think newer then you are. You're so brave to try to hatch now, I have not gotten to that point yet. Hang in there you'll figure it out.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

I can't figure out why we are losing so many. A few I could tell wouldn't make it as soon as we took them out of the box but the one today seemed fine the whole week. Very frustrating. I have tried force feeding them but it doesn't help our maybe it helps them last a day or two extra but it never gets them to improve. I hope we have better luck with any chicks we hatch! I wonder if there is something in the house that any chick with a weakness just can't handle? Problem with that theory is we seem to do fine with the feed store chicks, only lost 1 out of 9 of those compared to 7 out of 25 of the shipped chicks.

I know exactly what your going through, I'm sorry for all your losses. My order from last august was like that, it had me and the entire Meyer's staff stumped. I lost 10 chicks from my order of 80, with absolutely no rhyme or reason to the deaths. I was used to a death or two from a shipment, but I've never experienced anything like that. We never did figure out what was going on, but I had ended up bleaching all the feeders/waterers/ sanitized the coop floor and dosed the water for seven days with duramycin then followed it up with electrolytes/probiotics.

 

[NanaLynn]

Day Two of Coop Construction

Nest boxes are complete now with a top


Roosts are up. Three levels. We'll be adding middle supports for the lower two roosts. They have a nice window view too. I will be adding hardware cloth to the window.


The vinyl floor is down too. We bought a 8 x 12 roll and the lady there gave us a great deal on a 4 x 12 roll, got both for around $40. They overlap a little, but once I put all the pine shavings in no one will notice. I stapled it all along the wall and where it overlaps.

So the inside is done, except for adding two vents, a window or two more and painting. Once those things are done we are hoping to move the chickens in. I am hoping this weekend.

We are rushing everything since the city is getting closer and closer to their current coop as you can see. They have made a huge mess in the side of our yard. They're scaring the chickens and shaking our house with all the work they are doing. Eventually it will look great but now it's a huge muddy mess.


If anyone has any ideas about building a run on a slope, please let me know, that is our next thing we need to do. We need to move our current run to the new coop and it is a pretty good slope about 2 to 3 feet difference.

 

[christine9]

Day Two of Coop Construction

Looks like you're doing great! The only thing I could think of to build the run on a slope like that is to build like you would do fencing. Basically you could could put in posts and then enclose it. You could make it level along the top or let it follow the slope. Good luck and great job so far!!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Feathered legs = Marans The one on the right is a Speckled Sussex, I am almost positive. We have one at this exact stage.

My friend and I split an order of Meyers chicks. My order included an Easter Egger and a Speckled Sussex. We mistook our EE for the Sussex for the first week until we noticed she had puffy cheeks and green legs. Turned out my friend had the SS, thinking it was an EE, except she had pink legs. We switched them without incident (it had only been a week), but before we switched them, we sent comparison shots to Megan at Meyers, and she confirmed.

Thought I'd jump in here. The one you pointed out as a Sussex has yellow legs--My Speckled Sussex both had pinkish legs, even this early on. Her stance makes me think Light Brown Leghorn, but she could also be a Welsummer. The one next to her looks just like my Partridge Rocks did as chicks. The first pic, I'm pretty sure the one on the right is a white Cochin. She has a lot more feathering on her legs and seems too whitish/yellowish to be a blue splash Marans. The other one is probably a splash Marans, though. I'll have to go back and find the original post. It looked like y'all had the rest of them ID'd pretty much how I was thinking except these little ones, though. And in other news, my Meyer Silver Lakenvelder is FINALLY laying! She will be 10 months old on the 12th. I don't know how old she was when she started, though, because I found her first egg under the nest boxes, frozen solid and split. :/ Oh, well. But that means all my babies are laying and so they're all grown up. Now I'm really getting the chickie fever! 74 days left until I pick up my new girls. e

 

[trsturself]

We did electrolytes in the water in addition to vitamins and ACV (with the mother). We fed egg yolk with those things in it to the ones that looked weak hoping to give them some extra nutrients.
2 more were dead this morning (a buff polish and one of the bantam EEs - in different brooders)! Both were acting fine last night when I checked on them. I'm not doing medicated feed, but just mentioned to my daughter last night that we should go pick up a small bag. I haven't added any of the shavings from outside because it's so sloppy out there with all the snow. Maybe I'll grab some out of the coop and mix it in.
I know the feed store gets theirs from a hatchery (Ideal I think) but we get them the same day they receive them but we do pick out ones that are eating and look good so maybe we're leaving all the weak ones there so we don't have the same ratio. But we're almost to 50% now. That's not a normal rate! I have also heard that coming up to elevation is hard on them (we live a little higher than denver). No more shipped chicks for me. I thought maybe it was just the polish last year but now it's all different breeds. It's too hard and a waste of money!

 

[christine9]

We did electrolytes in the water in addition to vitamins and ACV (with the mother). We fed egg yolk with those things in it to the ones that looked weak hoping to give them some extra nutrients. 
2 more were dead this morning (a buff polish and one of the bantam EEs - in different brooders)! Both were acting fine last night when I checked on them. I'm not doing medicated feed, but just mentioned to my daughter last night that we should go pick up a small bag. I haven't added any of the shavings from outside because it's so sloppy out there with all the snow. Maybe I'll grab some out of the coop and mix it in. 
I know the feed store gets theirs from a hatchery (Ideal I think) but we get them the same day they receive them but we do pick out ones that are eating and look good so maybe we're leaving all the weak ones there so we don't have the same ratio. But we're almost to 50% now. That's not a normal rate! I have also heard that coming up to elevation is hard on them (we live a little higher than denver). No more shipped chicks for me. I thought maybe it was just the polish last year but now it's all different breeds. It's too hard and a waste of money!

That's just so crazy! I can't believe you're having such a hard time. Sorry to hear it.

 

[AKhen]

The 4 EE. Lucy, Ethel, Amelia and Dixie.