Silence Is Not Golden Here

[Zinjifrah]

Lucky you! I have eight hens. One of them lays reliably in the nesting box. My old Welsummer hen. She doesn't lay a ton anymore, but at least she does get them in the box.
I have a two story wood cat house on my deck, each with a little deck off it. The bantams fight over the bottom story and they all lay in there.
One of my Easter egger hens lays in the woods behind the wood pile. My second EE hen laid her first green egg today. It was behind a bale of straw under the deck. I've given up trying to get them to lay in the box. I just watch where they go when they burst out of the coop in the morning.

I'm still trying to figure Wren out... she looks like she should be laying. Her comb and wattles have come in, and are bright red, most days. Other days, they're pale again, but I chalk that up to the heat. Her cloaca has enlarged, but it's dry, not moist. She doesn't squat at all. Yesterday, Copper was escorting her everywhere... today he's ignoring her. I'm starting to think that she's a neuter!

 

[Conan]

I'm still trying to figure Wren out... she looks like she should be laying. Her comb and wattles have come in, and are bright red, most days. Other days, they're pale again, but I chalk that up to the heat. Her cloaca has enlarged, but it's dry, not moist. She doesn't squat at all. Yesterday, Copper was escorting her everywhere... today he's ignoring her. I'm starting to think that she's a neuter!

I could've sworn that Lucille was hiding her eggs from me. Her comb and little wattles are very red. She nests in every strand of straw she sees. Made two nests in the nesting box, eyeballed the cat house (but it was full of bantams), made a nest in the call duck's house and several around the bale of straw under the deck. This has been going on for weeks. Lucille II is the same age and been laying for around a month. She did develop much faster than Lucille though and boy, was she a monster chick.
I just love first eggs - very cool to be able to tell them apart.
Lucille II on the left and Lucille on the right.

 

[Zinjifrah]

I could've sworn that Lucille was hiding her eggs from me. Her comb and little wattles are very red. She nests in every strand of straw she sees. Made two nests in the nesting box, eyeballed the cat house (but it was full of bantams), made a nest in the call duck's house and several around the bale of straw under the deck. This has been going on for weeks. Lucille II is the same age and been laying for around a month. She did develop much faster than Lucille though and boy, was she a monster chick.
I just love first eggs - very cool to be able to tell them apart.
Lucille II on the left and Lucille on the right.
View attachment 1490091

Yeah - I was happy to finally know the color of ONE of my EE's. Wren's a Serama, so she'll be easy to spot when I find an egg... if I do. The Sebrights... well, they're older than Wren, and show no sign of developing any comb or wattles. I've taken to calling them the Spinsters. I'd be happy to have each of the EE's lay a different color, just so that I can keep track of who's laying and when.

 

[Zinjifrah]

One of my LavAmBans is going to die.

It hasn't grown at all since hatching. It eats, and tries to drink... but I've been hand-watering it with a q-tip for the past day, and have confirmed that it seems to not know how to swallow very well. It breaths fine, cheeps fine - constantly. It's warm enough, not too warm. It's also had pasty butt constantly since about a day after hatching, which I've been cleaning off. ACV and vitamins in the water, a bit of yogurt in the food, they have no effect. When it drinks, instead of just tipping its head back, opening its beak a little and swallowing, it tips its head back, gapes its beak wide open and flails its tongue around. Looking down its throat, I don't see anything wrong anatomically. It has a small deformity on one eye - the eyelid looks like it didn't separate all the way, so the eyeball seems to be the same size as the other, but at a glance it looks smaller.

I just found it rolled onto its back and not moving in the hide box. It's warm, but I thought it was dead until I picked it up. I suspect it won't survive the night... and that it has an internal defect. I'm pretty sure this is the one that was last to hatch, that had gotten shrink-wrapped from the bottom up in its egg.

The other five remain strong, growing, guzzling, gorging, and active. None of them have had any pasty butt. I've seen no sign of the weak chick being picked on by the others, either in active watching or on the chick itself. If anything, they seem to cluster close to it, keeping it warm when it's out of the hide box and giving it company. I don't think it's a 'sickness' that the others could catch, so I haven't separated it. Poop appears fairly normal, other than seeming to have a lot of urates.

 

[Redhead Rae]

One of my LavAmBans is going to die.

It hasn't grown at all since hatching.

I'm sorry. It sucks when you have one like that.

I had 6 babies in a recent hatch, 1 oops chick, 1 Chocolate Orp chick and 4 Dark Cornish chicks. One of the babies was a little slower and smaller than the others. On day 3-4, I tried grafting these babies onto a mama hen and she rejected them. I tried giving them to a mother with chicks that were a week older and it seemed like she accepted them at first, but I went out later that day and 5 of the babies were in a corner and the little one was in the center gaping and looking miserable. I then realized, the babies didn't know how to drink from the rabbit bottles I use in my broody pens. They used a mason jar watering system inside. I started teaching them how to drink from the bottle and all six of them started fighting over the bottles. That was when I realized that the second hen had rejected them as well. She didn't like them making so much noise and using her resources and started pushing them away from the water. These chicks are being brooder raised now, but 3-5 days after the rejections, the small chick, who just continued to fall farther and farther behind the other chicks died. It happens sometimes.

 

[Zinjifrah]

I'm sorry. It sucks when you have one like that.

I had 6 babies in a recent hatch, 1 oops chick, 1 Chocolate Orp chick and 4 Dark Cornish chicks. One of the babies was a little slower and smaller than the others. On day 3-4, I tried grafting these babies onto a mama hen and she rejected them. I tried giving them to a mother with chicks that were a week older and it seemed like she accepted them at first, but I went out later that day and 5 of the babies were in a corner and the little one was in the center gaping and looking miserable. I then realized, the babies didn't know how to drink from the rabbit bottles I use in my broody pens. They used a mason jar watering system inside. I started teaching them how to drink from the bottle and all six of them started fighting over the bottles. That was when I realized that the second hen had rejected them as well. She didn't like them making so much noise and using her resources and started pushing them away from the water. These chicks are being brooder raised now, but 3-5 days after the rejections, the small chick, who just continued to fall farther and farther behind the other chicks died. It happens sometimes.

Yeah. I'd noticed when introducing the chicks to the water that one of them acted funny when trying to drink... but it seemed to be accomplishing it, so I didn't worry too much, and they were impossible to tell apart at that point.

 

[Zinjifrah]

It's gone.

 

[The Farmers' Daughter]

Hmmmm, you gonna keep me guessing?

It's a libation.

 

[The Farmers' Daughter]

It's gone.

 

[BlackHackle]

Hey @The Farmers' Daughter , I forgot to show you these pics of Crystal's birds at the fair. I'm getting RIR's from her in the late fall! The first breed of chicken I got were hatchery RIR's and now I finally get to have the nice dark red ones!

Here is her Buckeye roo (I'm sure you've seen him before)