Hi Toshiko24, First off, I thought both of you posts were very clearly written and inciteful. I liked them both. However, they were very hard for an old dude to read. I got up close to the monitor and struggled through it, and it was worth it to do so. I mean no offense by this at all, but maybe you hadn't thought of how hard such light font is for some of us without the greatest of vision anymore to read.You said your babies hatched 3 and 4 days ago so they should still be fine.
A baby chick can survive multiple days with no food or water because they are living off of the yolk they absorbed from their egg just before they hatched. That is why feeding a baby chick that is struggling some scrambled eggs can give them such a boost. It is a natural food for the baby. They are designed to be that way so the mom can have some extra days to make sure all her babies have a chance to hatch and stabilize before she has to abandon what is left. When you order day old chicks online it can take 3-5 days for them to reach your home with no food or water.
As long as the food and water you gave them is easy within reach of the babies they will feed themselves when their absorbed yolk is all used up and they start to get hungry. And you said you already showed them the water before you left. A baby chick doesn't actually need a mom to tell it what to do. They do not learn anything faster or slower with or without a mom. Biggest benefit to a mom is to satisfy the babies need for that physical comfort of being cuddled up in her feathers and feeling worm and safe.
If the babies are eating themselves right now there wouldn't be a mess to see because they are not big enough to start wanting to kick and scratch yet and they will not eat very much yet. If you want to know if the babies are eating you can feel their crop when you get home and see if it is a little ball. (If you don't know, the crop is located on the upper right portion of their chest and is where all their food goes before they digest it. It will feel like a little pea or bump. The crop should be empty and flat in the mornings and full at night.) If they are not eating when you get home you can sprinkle some crumbles on the ground by them and tap your finger by the crumbs. Sometimes that taping sound gets them excited about what you are doing and they will run over to see what you have. You can also sprinkle some food in front of the mom and see if you can get her to cackle at her babies that she found a yummy treat. They will run over and try to eat what she is cackling to them about.
Hope this helps a little. Keep us updated on your little poof families progress.
O sorry about that, nobody ever said anything about my post color before so I had no idea it was hard to read. I just really like that teal color and it looked dark enough on my screen. I will keep that in mind for future posts.
That's a lot better. I like teal for a color too, maybe it'd have more contrast on white background or some other color. I don't think it's so much about the shade as the lesser contrast. When the teal come up with the blue quote background, it was almost invisible to me. I didn't even try to read that. Thank You!
X2
If you highlight them they are readable...that's what I do.
