Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[Bens-Hens]

Thanks for keeping the thread warm while I was away too team!

I have not had the chance to get some nicer pics, but I did get a couple of interest so far.

In the Fav department, looking like one male one female.






The Wellies seem a bit harder at the moment, going to have to wait a bit longer I think. All four seem to have noticeable combs, but also have the female wing pattern, so jury is still out with them. Only one has a comb that I think is too big to ignore.

Funnily enough, this one with the biggest comb had the down marking of 'clearly a female' with the extended eye liner and well defined darker stripes.


The two blue 'Lorp's are looking great, pretty confident the early calls were correct, still too early to gender I think (ignores slightly larger comb)


The three little Ara's are doing great, one had a bit of pasty butt before we left but some warm water cleared that up. I think we only have one male at this point judging by the comb width, but again that is an early call.


The Marans have put on some good size, and I have only noticed two with a few darker under patches so at this point it looks like we have more girls than boys there.




I didn't grab any of the others, when I get time I will separate them again and get some of each breed so the different ones stand out more.

Finally a group shot of a few on the second story of the condo.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Great pics Ben. lol, that welsummer perched on the wall of the brooder - I'll be shocked if that one isn't a little roo. He's just got that roo look about him Glad you got some girls in both the wheatens and favs - you're gonna love having them in your flock.

 

[babyfoot]

Great pics. It's nice to know what each of the breeds are, mine are (as they say on here) mutts hahaha but... I appear to have a pure white one and one that is palest cream/buff and the last one has dark brown/black wing tips, all three have very pronounced wing feathers at only a few days old (is that possibly a female trait?) I usually just wait till the combs start growing and I can tell by then

 

[Bens-Hens]

I have read that generally, the females feather faster than males. From what I have seen myself, it seems more common that they feather in different area's.

An example would be in our last hatch we noticed the girls Ara's got shoulder feathers before the boy's, but the boy's had chest feathers first. Was not true to them all though but something I noticed with that breed from the same parents. I would not say it's an accurate method, but side by side comparison seems to be kind of reliable.

Other than known colours in the early feathers, waiting for the combs seems to be a good indicator.

As a side note, today while coming back from the feed store I found a old white cupboard laying on the side of the road. Loaded it into the ute and brought it home. WIll make a perfect 'one time' use big brooder for so many chicks. I will set it up outside under the patio in a week or so. 27 chicks in our current brooder won't work for to much longer.

I guess it was 'meant to be' when I stumbled over it.

 

[babyfoot]

Quote: Ohhhhh noooo, you are just like my hubby, cannot resist kerbside collections. You have no idea what he brings home some days! *groans* He has found recently two bike trailer thingummybobs for kiddies? that he wants to transform into trailers for his ATV for around the firebreak (one is life survival I am led to believe... it's for the beeer eski!!!!)

 

[babyfoot]

Quote: oh and it's to be solar powered cooled... yeah he's an electrician. He drives me nuts

 

[Wrightsx4]

That's hilarious, sounds like my hubby. He's more of a mechanical engineer though, lol. This year's big project is the ice skating rink in the backyard. 30 foot by 50 foot, he already built the Zamboni. He built a solar heater for the pool a few years ago. Always creating stuff - I'm grateful for most if it.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Ride on esky...got to love that!

See a need fill a need. We have a bunch of birds, and the dust is already starting to get to me. I don't think we will hatch this many birds at once again for a very long time so we just need a temp brooder capable of holding this many. I didn't want to pay for materials, especially when someone was chucking one out. Not even curb collections, they just dragged it out the front and stuck some other junk in it.

Helping them helped me hahahaha

 

[Fancychooklady]

Oh I use to love the kerbside collection in floreat park. I remember our son coming home from school one day with a chair balanced on his push bike . He was so pleased with his " find ".

 

[Bens-Hens]

Yipee! I found this on the doorstep when I got home this afternoon.




OPened them up but we lost a few along the way....dang Aus Post not respecting the FRAGILE. We lost 5, but are left with 7 to ty.



Nice size and shape, 'bator is up and running already! WIll leave this troopers to rest for another day air cell end up before sliding them in.

Can't wait to meet our little Coronation Sussex all the way from Tassie! Thanks Lisa for getting them to us.