abigailb
In the Brooder
Hello, we have six baby chicks who will be two weeks old tomorrow. I have raised chicks before, but only once and it was 15 years ago!
Anyway, they are all different breeds. The Silver Laced Wyandotte is now much smaller than the others. She always seemed a little more “quiet” right from the beginning, but was the same size more or less as the rest. She has been eating and drinking from the beginning, not acting sick. As the days have gone by, everyone else is getting bigger and bolder, but she is still quite small, and losing pace with them quickly. Definitely still comes out and eats/drinks, no obvious issues in terms of legs/ feet / pasty butt or anything like that. She does prefer to hang out under the heating plate (although they all still spend a fair amount of time under the plate, which I think is to be expected) and definitely spends less time than the others eating. She is also easily discouraged from eating, nobody is specifically picking on her, but when there’s a lot of commotion around the feeder she just goes off to the side and will then often just end up going back under the heating plate, having only eaten a couple of bites. Should we be concerned? She is half the size of the biggest ones at this point. Biggest ones are the Austalorp and the Speckled Sussex. The Sussex definitely seems to have established herself at the top of the pecking order, has a lot of feathers and is flying around the brooder like crazy! So we are definitely keeping an eye to make sure she doesn’t pick on the SLW. Anyway, should we be concerned? Should we be taking her out and giving her solo feeding sessions from time to time? They were all given gro gel on the first two days, and I am still giving them electrolytes daily in their water. All the chicks came from Murray McMurray. Their brooder has a Brinsea heating plate and the ambient temperature in the rest of it is about 65 degrees. Thank you!!!
Anyway, they are all different breeds. The Silver Laced Wyandotte is now much smaller than the others. She always seemed a little more “quiet” right from the beginning, but was the same size more or less as the rest. She has been eating and drinking from the beginning, not acting sick. As the days have gone by, everyone else is getting bigger and bolder, but she is still quite small, and losing pace with them quickly. Definitely still comes out and eats/drinks, no obvious issues in terms of legs/ feet / pasty butt or anything like that. She does prefer to hang out under the heating plate (although they all still spend a fair amount of time under the plate, which I think is to be expected) and definitely spends less time than the others eating. She is also easily discouraged from eating, nobody is specifically picking on her, but when there’s a lot of commotion around the feeder she just goes off to the side and will then often just end up going back under the heating plate, having only eaten a couple of bites. Should we be concerned? She is half the size of the biggest ones at this point. Biggest ones are the Austalorp and the Speckled Sussex. The Sussex definitely seems to have established herself at the top of the pecking order, has a lot of feathers and is flying around the brooder like crazy! So we are definitely keeping an eye to make sure she doesn’t pick on the SLW. Anyway, should we be concerned? Should we be taking her out and giving her solo feeding sessions from time to time? They were all given gro gel on the first two days, and I am still giving them electrolytes daily in their water. All the chicks came from Murray McMurray. Their brooder has a Brinsea heating plate and the ambient temperature in the rest of it is about 65 degrees. Thank you!!!
