Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[Poultrybonkers]

Duck, duck, goose!  What a handsome little guy, I like his coloring.  Who's the black cockerel?

The black one came from tsc. And yeah my ducks and geese where free ranging. Lol my Cornish rocks were to but this is how they free range

That is where they basically live. Lol they live in their feed bin.

 

[CHchickie86]

My Meyer chicks are now almost a month old. I ordered 12 pullets from the Rare Breed Assortment, one pullet each from the following: Salmon Faverolle, Black Copper Marans, standard Blue Cochin (which I was thrilled to get an actual blue and not a splash or black), and a Barnevelder.

They're all doing awesome, I couldn't be happier. They arrived one day earlier than the tracking information had stated. The liveliest chicks I've ever had. I'm in California so they didn't have a short trip from Ohio either.

The Blue Cochin

The day of arrival

Dinner is served!

 

[COChix]

Well yesterday was a marathon day, it began at 5 am. When I went to bed Tuesday night we had one pip and woke up to 12 pips and one unzipping. We had hatches in waves yesterday, the first 8 moved pretty quickly once they got going. Then we rounded out the day with 4 more. The first pip ended up not hatching until almost 4 pm (they pipped around 4:18pm Tuesday) and I had to partial assist. Her shell had gotten stuck as she zipped down towards the floor rather than around. Anyway long story short, after all day of her trying to unzip all the way she couldn't. So I moistened the membrane and then was able to get most of the shell off. There was still about 1/4 stuck to her, that eventually came off and she is doing ok. The first wave seemed pretty robust a healthy, the second weave definitely seemed more small and a little more fragile.

So right now we have 12 from yesterday, two that just hatched and two more currently unzipping and a hand full in the bator still. Here are a few pics of the gang from last night.

Here is the one I assisted, so I didn't pull the shell all the way off, I moistened the membrane (it was dry, brownish/yellow) and then turned the egg over and pulled the membrane back some and the shell partial off. She was able to free herself eventually.

It was the strangest thing, in the middle of dealing with hatching etc, I decided to go check on the flock. I went out and started slopping their fermented feed into their feed pans when I noticed one of our dark Cornish. She was laying lifeless on the ground. I walked over and picked her up and she seemed dead. She wasn't cold yet, she wasn't stuff. I picked her up and examined her some. No visible injuries, my BF then started to go over her body. He tried giving her some air, nothing. It did seem as if her vent was protruding some, not all the way outside of her body but it was fairly swollen and reddish. The best we can figure is she died while being mounted by our roo. She was the runt of the litter and was rather small. It was just a very odd day, bringing in babies and saying goodbye to a flock member. We have no come full circle with our Meyer flock from just over a year ago. It doesn't seem possible that it has been a year since we started this journey.

 

[ImNotYogi]

One of the chicks seems to be having issue with pseudo pasty butt though the vent isn't blocked. She ran when I went to check her this morning and immediately relieved herself when the coast was clear.

 

[COChix]

Hey guys, sorry been MIA the last couple days but I have been swamped. Not only with the hatching going on but with our gardens and greenhouses filled up and running this past week. I know nobody really cares about that and wants a chick update.

Here is where we stand.

We hatched 16 total and one died today, she was the last to hatch and was super tiny. Anyway, we have 15 pretty robust gang. We hatched 9 out of the 13 fertile brown, I dropped one and one seemed to be an late quitter. Out of the EE (15) we hatched 7.

I candled the remaining of our eggs and PC's eggs his am. I don't believe any of them will hatch. Their veining appeared thin and not plump.

I did take pics of each one yesterday and I will post them on my profile page. I will post a link here once I am done. They have all learned how to eat and drink out of little bottle caps on the brooder floor. Yesterday they discovered they could eat their feed, lol. It was a big day in the life of baby chicks.

 

[christine9]

Hey guys, sorry been MIA the last couple days but I have been swamped. Not only with the hatching going on but with our gardens and greenhouses filled up and running this past week. I know nobody really cares about that and wants a chick update.

Here is where we stand.

We hatched 16 total and one died today, she was the last to hatch and was super tiny. Anyway, we have 15 pretty robust gang. We hatched 9 out of the 13 fertile brown, I dropped one and one seemed to be an late quitter. Out of the EE (15) we hatched 7.

I candled the remaining of our eggs and PC's eggs his am. I don't believe any of them will hatch. Their veining appeared thin and not plump.

I did take pics of each one yesterday and I will post them on my profile page. I will post a link here once I am done. They have all learned how to eat and drink out of little bottle caps on the brooder floor. Yesterday they discovered they could eat their feed, lol. It was a big day in the life of baby chicks.

Looks like you had a nice hatch. Sorry to hear that you lost one of your originals. It seems like a strange way to lose one, but I guess it happens. It's never easy, but I find that new baby chicks help dull the pain. Congrats on all the new babes!

 

[TiaRC]

I quick update. I wound up losing 2 chicks, not sure what happened. Everyone was doing great then boom 2 went down and was acting sleepy and wouldn't eat or drink. Then they passed. One blue and one white with black spots.

 

[COChix]

Looks like you had a nice hatch. Sorry to hear that you lost one of your originals. It seems like a strange way to lose one, but I guess it happens. It's never easy, but I find that new baby chicks help dull the pain. Congrats on all the new babes!

Thanks and on the year old Cornish it is also possible she was egg bound as her vent area was red and swollen . She seemed fine in the am when I fed so not sure and did t have time to do an autopsy. All the fluff balls help alot! I had forgotten a lot of things about baby chicks. Like day 3 they discovered food and instantly started scratching and pecking. It was super cute!

I quick update. I wound up losing 2 chicks, not sure what happened. Everyone was doing great then boom 2 went down and was acting sleepy and wouldn't eat or drink. Then they passed. One blue and one white with black spots.

sorry for your loss.

 

[autumnhearth]

I quick update. I wound up losing 2 chicks, not sure what happened. Everyone was doing great then boom 2 went down and was acting sleepy and wouldn't eat or drink. Then they passed. One blue and one white with black spots.

So sorry to hear that

We've had a very busy weekend. Our wedding anniversary is today and nephew's birthday was yesterday but we celebrated on opposite days due to scheduling. Husband joined me for supervising free-range early this evening so we decided to let the chicks out of their pen at the same time. It went much better than before, the big girls mostly ignored them and went off to the back part of the yard. There were only two instances where we needed to intervene. When the big girls saw the littles in their dust bathing area they ran over scolding and at one point Amelia pecked one of the young one's tails. The young ones are now 8 weeks old and the husband finally gave his Brahma a name: Pema. It means lotus in Tibetan, husband chose it from Legend of Korra. He wanted a Hindi name but nothing seemed right. He was stuck on Ruby or Bria and got my hopes up with Ophelia, Astrid and Hilda. I'm just glad the turmoil is over and she has a name.


Jay with Pema, she's such a looker


Pema the Light Brahma and Snow the White Rock


Snow, Pema, Cora Snow and Cora


Cornelia the Welsummer


Cora with big sisters Amelia and Clara Baby heading over to scold the little ones, I intercepted

 

[Finnie]

Yay Pema, you have a name!

I've also let my chicks out to mingle with the hens a couple of times. They mostly get ignored, too. Just a few instances where one hen decided it needed to make sure a chick knew who's boss. The only thing I had to intervene about was the turkeys. Which is weird, because they grew up in the brooder together, and I still stuff the turkeys (I like to say that) into the baby coop with the chicks to sleep every night. So you would think they would get along. But there was something about seeing the chicks streaming out of their coop door that triggered the turkeys to be aggressive and chase them down. I had to put the turkeys outside the backyard fence. Fortunately, the turkeys were too dumb to realize they could jump back in the yard, and they spent the chicks' free range time pacing back and forth trying to put their heads through the chain link. Dumb turkeys!

After a half hour or so, I let the turkeys back in the yard, and then they behaved themselves. I wanted to take pictures of the chicks running around the yard, like you did, but I was doing it too close to dusk for photos. I'll have to let them out a little earlier next time so there is better light. I've pretty much stopped taking Birthday Monday pictures, since they live outside now, and they have grown a lot recently. They actually resemble chickens now.