Spring Chicks!

[-BOGGS-]

I lost 8 show quality SLW last month to a predator ....so now I'm patiently waiting on 8 SLW chicks and 8 SLW bantam chicks ..I'll miss my old flock for a while tho

 

[ShrekDawg]

I lost 8 show quality SLW last month to a predator ....so now I'm patiently waiting on 8 SLW chicks and 8 SLW bantam chicks ..I'll miss my old flock for a while tho

Awww no!! That is horrible!! So sorry!!

Congrats on the new babies though!! I bet they will be super cute

 

[Liddy]

Thanks for the sympathy, @KDOGG331. I'm either made of pragmatic hearty peasant stock or a heartless old broad, but I do what has to be done, without hesitation. I did bring Peewee inside and tried to bolster her with additional electrolytes but she was dead by morning. Since this thread is for CHICKS!!!! I offer a pic of tiny Peewee at 3 weeks. All of the other in the Cackle Hatchery Surprise pack had 3" wings, and she still had this adorable wee stub!

I lost 8 show quality SLW last month to a predator ....so now I'm patiently waiting on 8 SLW chicks and 8 SLW bantam chicks ..I'll miss my old flock for a while tho

You have my sympathy. It's hard to lose them, for sure!

I've never had SLW but my one GLW was gorgeous! I have a mental picture of your future flock, with big and little versions of the same breed. It should be totally adorable!

 

[ShrekDawg]

Thanks for the sympathy, @KDOGG331. I'm either made of pragmatic hearty peasant stock or a heartless old broad, but I do what has to be done, without hesitation. I did bring Peewee inside and tried to bolster her with additional electrolytes but she was dead by morning. Since this thread is for CHICKS!!!! I offer a pic of tiny Peewee at 3 weeks. All of the other in the Cackle Hatchery Surprise pack had 3" wings, and she still had this adorable wee stub!

View attachment 1707495



You have my sympathy. It's hard to lose them, for sure!

I've never had SLW but my one GLW was gorgeous! I have a mental picture of your future flock, with big and little versions of the same breed. It should be totally adorable!

I wish I could be like that!! I am sure if my whole flock was sick and/or suffering I could though!! Definitely wouldn’t want any animal suffering. But I won’t even get meat birds because I think I would get too attached. I do want to try someday though so that’s good at least but I just don’t think I could actually do it or would feel guilty about it or something so I haven’t. I wish I could.

And awwww she was sooo cute!!! Sorry again for your loss. What kind of chicken was she? Buff Orpington??

And X2!! Bigs and littles should be so cute

I was going to add Wyandotte’s to my order but I heard so many mixed things about then that I decided not to. I was really close to trying them and had them in the cart from the good things people said about them but then I heard a bunch of bad too so took them back out. Would like to try them one day but atm I don’t have that much room to experiment with ones that have such mixed reviews. One day though.

 

[Liddy]

When I began on this journey with my fluffybutts, I knew nothing about different breeds. I started off with 3 dozen straight run chicks from TSC, and the split was even! Who could resist a dozen Dixie Chicks? Those Dixie Rainbow roos were RUDE! They started -- at the tender age of 11 weeks -- nailing my hands and forearms when I FED them! That made it easy to harvest them. Payback was sweet. All except the one I kept, who turned out to be a real sweetheart. Big Sir suffered himself to be picked up, he would call his ladies when he saw me approach with treats then let them eat first, he would take morsels he found in the yard to a hen, and generally was an awesome flock master.



Almost every other roo I've had since then has been aggressive. I don't put up with that crap.

Every year I have gotten a collection or an assortment, from the double Cackle Hatchery Surprise Pack, which taught me the perils of shipping chicks long distances, to my local feed store, where I pick them up a day after they arrive and survival rates are close to 100%.



This was my Cackle Hatchery surprise! 104 chicks and poults! There were EEs, Polish, BRs, Leghorns, Turkens, some I never did identify, and 3 poults. There were far more pullets than I expected.

TURKEY POULT PHOTOBOMB!!!!
The turkeys were AWESOME! They were gorgeous toms.



I will always prefer a mixed flock. I like being able to tell them apart.

 

[ShrekDawg]

When I began on this journey with my fluffybutts, I knew nothing about different breeds. I started off with 3 dozen straight run chicks from TSC, and the split was even! Who could resist a dozen Dixie Chicks? Those Dixie Rainbow roos were RUDE! They started -- at the tender age of 11 weeks -- nailing my hands and forearms when I FED them! That made it easy to harvest them. Payback was sweet. All except the one I kept, who turned out to be a real sweetheart. Big Sur suffered himself to be picked up, he would call his ladies when he saw me approach with treats then let them eat first, he would take morsels he found in the yard to a hen, and generally was an awesome flock master.

View attachment 1708208

Almost every other roo I've had since then has been aggressive. I don't put up with that crap.

Every year I have gotten a collection or an assortment, from the double Cackle Hatchery Surprise Pack, which taught me the perils of shipping chicks long distances, to my local feed store, where I pick them up a day after they arrive and survival rates are close to 100%.

View attachment 1708214

This was my Cackle Hatchery surprise! 104 chicks and poults! There were EEs, Polish, BRs, Leghorns, Turkens, some I never did identify, and 3 poults. There were far more pullets than I expected.

View attachment 1708217 TURKEY POULT PHOTOBOMB!!!!
The turkeys were AWESOME! They were gorgeous toms.

View attachment 1708218

I will always prefer a mixed flock. I like being able to tell them apart.

Wow those toms are gorgeous!! And that assortment box sounds like a great idea!! I do like variety!

 

[Liddy]

@KDOGG331 You're probably closer to transportation than I am by a good ways, so your shipped chicks might have better survival than I did from Cackle. My mail goes to Bangor, then is trucked 3 hours north to my local hub, and then on to my PO. I can get the chicks about 6:30 am, but the long trip from MO took its toll.

I recommend collections and assortments highly! The variety is wonderful. I also made a trade/sale with an acquaintance a half hour north of me, which cut the size of my flock and let me acquire an EE roo. Herb eventually turned on me but before he did, I got a huge clutch of eggs for a friend's incubator, and from those I still have 8 hens.

 

[ShrekDawg]

@KDOGG331 You're probably closer to transportation than I am by a good ways, so your shipped chicks might have better survival than I did from Cackle. My mail goes to Bangor, then is trucked 3 hours north to my local hub, and then on to my PO. I can get the chicks about 6:30 am, but the long trip from MO took its toll.

I recommend collections and assortments highly! The variety is wonderful. I also made a trade/sale with an acquaintance a half hour north of me, which cut the size of my flock and let me acquire an EE roo. Herb eventually turned on me but before he did, I got a huge clutch of eggs for a friend's incubator, and from those I still have 8 hens.

Oh wow!! That is definitely a long way!! And a long trip even once they get in your state. I am not sure where they go through here but I do know that when I got my first chicks from Meyer Hatchery (in OH), they got here the next day. I am hoping for the same with my April chicks. I thought the first ones would be here the day after, not next day, but they were. Wasn’t prepared lol this year I am preparing way early.

I want to try an assortment sometime but I also have lots of breeds I still want to try so I didn’t this time. I think I would like having an assortment though, it is a lot of fun!! But I also like picking breeds too. And don’t really have room for that many birds, even though some places do have smaller assortments. But I think if I ever get more room, I will try an assortment. Especially now I have tried most of the breeds I wanted to try.

And wow that is awesome!!! I want an EE or Ameracauna roo eventually but I can’t have a roo right now. Technically on our property/town we can but we have close neighbors in the back, right where near the chickens are kept, and plus my parents don’t like the idea of eating fertilized eggs or the noise. But I think if I ever got a rooster, I would get an EE. Or maybe an Orpington. I want a nice one. I would love to hatch eggs from some of my birds, my one EE is an awesome layer and I would love to continue that, but they are 3 1/2 so I doubt any would hatch, and of course we don’t have a rooster. I have been debating getting a grown one off like Craigslist or something and putting it in with them for a few weeks or months, after quarantine and look no touch intros, but I don’t think it would be fair to the bird to get it only to turn around and rehome it so soon.

 

[equine chick]

Joining here late. I am also getting chicks this year. I have an order from my feedstore coming in april 26th. 10 Plymouth Rock Blues, 10 isa browns and 5 australops. I also have an order of15 black blue and splash ameraucaunas from deer farm in june.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Joining here late. I am also getting chicks this year. I have an order from my feedstore coming in april 26th. 10 Plymouth Rock Blues, 10 isa browns and 5 australops. I also have an order of15 black blue and splash ameraucaunas from deer farm in june.

Welcome!! And nice!! That is a nice mix. I didn’t realize or else forgot that Plymouth Rocks came in blue!! I love my Plymouth Rock hen!! I have a Barred right now and am getting a Partridge with my April order. Super excited. I wanted to try ISA Browns too as I have heard they are the best layers of all the sex links but they are only available from Hoover’s so I didn’t want to place a separate order. I might pick some up from TSC though but idk. Our TSC has a minimum order of 6 chicks and I don’t need nor have the room for that many. but maybe I could build a separate pen and start a production flock. I love my Australorps. I didn’t at first because they were really mean to the other girls for a while and a little bit to me but they settled down once they started laying and then a lot more once they got more space last year. The other coop and run was too small and I think they just need a lot of personal space lol they are still a little bit mean to some of the other hens but not nearly as bad. They used to sometimes chase them just to jump them lol but now they seem to have really calmed down the last year since they moved into the new coop (April 2018). Idk if it is the new space or age (3 1/2) or what. But I am glad. They are still a little unnecessarily mean though. Always gotta have the best treats (all of them ) and the best dust bathing spot. Today one of them pecked an EE pretty hard to get her to move then didn’t even take the spot or bathe. Then when the EE came back and she noticed, pecked her again then finally took the spot. But enough negative, they are very chatty with me too lol it is cute. And they didn’t used to like being held but now squat and let me pick them up and hold them and talk to them. So cute. Anyway, they are great birds now that they have matured more. But mine are also hatchery stock so may just be bad tempered lol

I would love actual Ameracaunas. I love my EEs so I think I would like them too. I especially like the blue eggs. One of my EEs lays blue (WHEN she lays, finally got an egg today after 7+ months lol) while the other lays kind of an olivey greenish color. The other EE is a very good layer, daily or close to it, good winter layer, was the first to start laying, etc. so I love that about her but her eggs are kind of small and kind of an ugly color LOL the other lays a nice blue and lays massive eggs but she doesn’t lay very often ha but I love her anyway. But anyway, I would love ones that lay all blue instead of the unknown.