My ups and downs so far with the chicks...

[hildar]

Good to hear that they have made it. I did lose the little one that peeped so much. Her wings stuck out funky, and she never laid down any place. She would stand and sleep or her head would be on the floor and her bottom would be in the air. The only time she laid down was when she passed away. But everyone else is healthy and on the closed in back porch in a cage. Today the door is open it got over 90 out there so I opened the door so they could get some fresh air. Tonight once it cools down a bit I will close the door and turn on the lamp again for them for the night.

 

[aatx]

I never thought they would be so fragile. Perhaps I should not have gone with bantams.

The only positive is that I probably won't be having to make a choice on which hens to keep. If I go with the 2 sq ft in the coop per bantam idea, the coop will hold 16. I am at 17 now and assume some of these will be roos, so I think we'll probably be down to a reasonable number just getting rid of them and then we could still have some lose some due to health or predation.

 

[aatx]

A few new videos if you have any interest…

Chicks fighting – well, not really fighting. Mostly jumping and chest bumping and stare downs. I enlarged their brooder and we had some new pecking order tiffs with the new space. There is one buff orpington that has decided it wants to fight the bigger easter eggers and it doesn’t play fair, it bites them!

And here is a very quick video of my special silkie. It has suffered from constipation issues, so we’ve spent lots of time together. I wanted to monitor it by itself for 24 hours after giving it a laxative on Saturday, so I made it a separate home in a tote that I kept in the bathroom. That night as long as I was in the bathroom, it would just cheep away while preening itself, but as soon as I would leave the room, it would start screaming. I’d come back in, and it would go back to cheeping, leave and back to screaming. Doesn’t want to be petted or anything, but wanted me in there. Note, I did not turn on the light or anything, so it wasn’t that. Finally just had to let it cry itself to sleep.

It’s doing better with its digestive issues, but it’s smaller than the others, so it gets special food. It loves boiled eggs and scrambled eggs. Here’s a short video of it getting some boiled egg.

And here is a spastic video of the chicks getting grapes for the first time. There are 17 chicks, so I cut up 18 grapes – most of them into 8 pieces. So, there are PLENTY of grapes on the plate. But they don’t want those grapes, they want to wait for one to get a piece and then try to take it away. They can’t eat quietly. If they grab a piece they have to shriek and run around as the others chase it.

 

[hildar]

aatx, mine are doing the same thing. We moved them to the big brooding cage on the back porch and they are jumping, running, trying to fly, and starting little play fights. The staring down cracks me up.

And the other night the brood lamp was on and it attracted a ton of small moths, the babies were jumping up and catching them, they had so much fun doing that. We watched them for about an hour before they all got tired and went to sleep.

 

[aatx]

aatx, mine are doing the same thing. We moved them to the big brooding cage on the back porch and they are jumping, running, trying to fly, and starting little play fights. The staring down cracks me up.

And the other night the brood lamp was on and it attracted a ton of small moths, the babies were jumping up and catching them, they had so much fun doing that. We watched them for about an hour before they all got tired and went to sleep.

When they do the stare downs, I can't help but make up little conversations for them in my head. Needless to say, they are very SASSY!

 

[hildar]

When they do the stare downs, I can't help but make up little conversations for them in my head. Needless to say, they are very SASSY!

We all just had the best laugh of them all Chip our little leghorn cockerel was staring down a NN pullet, he went to back up a bit and touched a sleeping chick and it pecked him right in the butt. Poor chip took off across the pen as fast as he could, left us all laughing.

 

[aatx]

Time for an update. The chicks turn 5 weeks old today. Tomorrow will be 3 weeks since the last chick death, so things have certainly improved. Eleven died in a 15 day period, then no deaths in the 20 days since then.

Chicks are still in the house, but I think I may be moving them into the coop this weekend.

Our temps for the next two weeks are around 70 for a low and 90 for a high and are just going to get warmer. The room they are in right now tends to stay between 75 and 85 degrees. This past week, the heat lamp has been reduced down to just three 30-minute cycles per day - one at 2am, one at 4am, and one at 10am - and this has been enough to keep the temp pretty close to 80 degrees. Tonight I will be turning off the lamp entirely as it is not needed to reach 75 degrees. I was using a ceramic bulb, so it did not generate any light. This room is pitch black at night, so I have left a small night light on in there all the time. It will probably be pretty similar to the light in the coop at night during the summer. It seems to give them just enough light to figure out where they want to sleep. When I get up to check on them around 5am, they're often just waking up, but no one moves beyond the small circle of light from the night light, so it's always a bit of chaos when I flip on the big overhead light! Very little light reaches them even during the day, so I do leave a LED desk lamp on during the day so they have no trouble seeing.

I changed out their bedding entirely last Friday, but I am noticing that odor is building up faster as they are getting larger. I toss in more shavings and they do a good job of turning everything over. I also have a small fan that I keep going in the room. It's stationary and I try to change its location daily. I think it helps make sure there are no wet spots from poo. I also make sure that there is plenty of room for the chicks to decide if they want to be in the line of the fan or away from it.

Last night, for the FIRST TIME, the knocked over one of the waterers. Instead of just refilling it, I replaced it with a small bucket with two horizontal nipples on it. I left the other waterer in there as they tend to be very scared of anything new. This morning they finally started to explore it a bit, pecking at the sides of the bucket and finally pecking some at the nipples. One of the silkies caught on and I am hoping that others will see this and learn. I plan on removing the other waterer either tonight or tomorrow morning. Knowing that I will use nipples in the coop and run, this is basically one last hurdle I wanted to tackle while they were inside.

Tonight I plan on painting a board inside the coop and the roosting boards as I want several days for it to dry and air out before the chicks go in there. We have a few more things to complete as well, but I think we can do it. I'm debating on if I want to add some foam board insulation to the inside of the coop.

I really have mixed feelings about the chickens leaving the house. It's so convenient right now - I can hop up on a commercial and go check on them. I don't have to get dressed in the mornings to take care of them. I don't have to worry about predators, etc. But, I think I'm beginning to get some odor and the dust has certainly started. Granted, they're in a separate room, so it won't be too bad to clean afterwards.