MJ's little flock

[BDutch]

I've been asking myself that very question! That's the problem with buying chickens, there's no guarantee of precise age.

I thought it was a difference in (adult) breed size. The Dutch chicks I had last year were much much smaller than the bantam Sussex. The Vorwerk were in between. They hatched within 2-3 days.

Dutch and Vorwerk. Adult Dutch are around 500 grams. Vorwerk 700. Sussex 800-900, but they seem to grow slower because there was no size difference with the Vorwerk.

July 2023 Vorwerk an Dutch

June 2023 all chicks with their adotive mothers.

 

[MaryJanet]

I thought it was a difference in (adult) breed size. The Dutch chicks I had last year were much much smaller than the bantam Sussex. The Vorwerk were in between. They hatched within 2-3 days.

Dutch and Vorwerk. Adult Dutch are around 500 grams. Vorwerk 700. Sussex 800-900, but they seem to grow slower because there was no size difference with the Vorwerk.

July 2023 Vorwerk an Dutch
View attachment 4003805

June 2023 all chicks with their adotive mothers.
View attachment 4003815

From the Sussex and Australorp hens I already have, I'd expect the Australorp chicks to be larger than the Sussex chicks. But maybe Edie is v small for a Sussex and maybe Mary is v large for an Australorp?

Whichever way you want to look at it, the chicks are not tracking to expectation. And it doesn't matter because they can choose between chick crumbles and pullet grower. So far the Australorps prefer the crumbles.

 

[BY Bob]

https://www.austinandbell.com/m/obituaries/Robert-Johnson-426/MemorialEvents

For those of you who knew him

Thanks so much for sharing. It is really nice of you to think of us with everything you are dealing with.

 

[BY Bob]

From the Sussex and Australorp hens I already have, I'd expect the Australorp chicks to be larger than the Sussex chicks. But maybe Edie is v small for a Sussex and maybe Mary is v large for an Australorp?

Whichever way you want to look at it, the chicks are not tracking to expectation. And it doesn't matter because they can choose between chick crumbles and pullet grower. So far the Australorps prefer the crumbles.

My full grown hens prefer chick food. I theorize it is the higher protein that draws them but I can't say for sure.

 

[MaryJanet]

My full grown hens prefer chick food. I theorize it is the higher protein that draws them but I can't say for sure.

It's an unanswerable question really. They simply prefer it and we can make all kinds of conjectures about why that might be, but the hens can't tell us why. I'm just glad every time the hens have a meal, no matter what it is. Katie ate a spider on Sunday and cockroach today, hooray! The chicks ate a whole colony of earwigs on Monday, hooray! I added an old tomato to the dinners tonight and everyone loved it, hooray! Mary spent 15 minutes eating pellets from the poly pipe, hooray! And on and on...

 

[ManueB]

It's an unanswerable question really. They simply prefer it and we can make all kinds of conjectures about why that might be, but the hens can't tell us why. I'm just glad every time the hens have a meal, no matter what it is. Katie ate a spider on Sunday and cockroach today, hooray! The chicks ate a whole colony of earwigs on Monday, hooray! I added an old tomato to the dinners tonight and everyone loved it, hooray! Mary spent 15 minutes eating pellets from the poly pipe, hooray! And on and on...

Most of the times I share this mindset, but I admit that it found it's limits today, when I caught Piou-piou feasting on my cat's vomit .

She was mad at me for not letting her finish...

 

[BY Bob]

Most of the times I share this mindset, but I admit that it found it's limits today, when I caught Piou-piou feasting on my cat's vomit .

She was mad at me for not letting her finish...

Oh Piou-piou. That is so unbecoming. Of course she was enjoying a hot meal for once.

 

[MaryJanet]

It was an exciting morning for one of the Australorp chicks. In its morning exuberance it flew up and over the fence of kindergarten corner and into the funrun where all the hens were. Ivy wasted no time delivering a few hard teachings upon its little noggin. Crying, it ran back and couldn't get in. I gently lifted it up and over while it cried its heart out.

I have to be at the office all day, and want to prevent similar fly outs and hard knocks while I'm gone, so I lowered the shade cloth to make a ceiling.

That's only a temporary measure. This evening, I'll have time to rig up a chick-sized gateway back in to the kindergarten. That way the little ones can venture out, meet the hens, and get back to safety.

 

[BY Bob]

It was an exciting morning for one of the Australorp chicks. In its morning exuberance it flew up and over the fence of kindergarten corner and into the funrun where all the hens were. Ivy wasted no time delivering a few hard teachings upon its little noggin. Crying, it ran back and couldn't get in. I gently lifted it up and over while it cried its heart out.

I have to be at the office all day, and want to prevent similar fly outs and hard knocks while I'm gone, so I lowered the shade cloth to make a ceiling.

That's only a temporary measure. This evening, I'll have time to rig up a chick-sized gateway back in to the kindergarten.

The chicken world is full of hard lessons. I am a little disappointed in Ivy though.

 

[MaryJanet]

The chicken world is full of hard lessons. I am a little disappointed in Ivy though.

She's sensitive about her place in the pecking order, having held the wooden spoon for a couple of years before Katie and Edie joined the gang.