Sub-tropical chooks - picture heavy

[ChickyChickens]

What a beautiful story with such beautiful pictures! I'm amazed that Snowy was able to get a 92% hatch rate on her first try! Way to go Snowy!

All of the little chicks are beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

X2!!

Thanks for the comments @ChickyChickens, @ChickenPeep and @chooks4life .

Chooks4life, you may be right about the mongrelising. The eggs were advertised on gumtree as pure breeds and I think they are, but it may be possible that there has been no genetic selection going on. I collected the eggs from the woman's husband and didn't feel comfortable asking him heaps of questions. At the time I was quite pleased that I could add to my flock without risking introducing disease. I guess genetic selection seems cruel until you have to deal with the consequences on not doing it. I also sent the breeder a nice text about the hatch rate and received no reply. It's certainly something I'd be pleased to hear if I was breeding.

I can't keep roosters so if I keep Dotty there is no chance of her passing along her genes. However, if I sell/give her away to another backyarder in the same position she won't either. It would be so much easier if she would just crow. I'll also have a look at their feathers to see if any are translucent. It will be my first time advertising chicks and I've explained to my kids that you can't be fussy if your spare roosters are another person's dinner or pet's food, but I hope that at least the pullets will get to have long backyard lives. They seem ok with it. Having said that, I can't help wondering what sort of eggs Dotty will produce.

Snowy managed to teach one chick how to get out of the run today. She perches on the door frame (which is raised), calls them, goes off and eats a bit of grass and then repeats. Very sweet to watch. Naturally it was Rumpless who figured it out so he had some one on one time free-ranging with mum before I helped the others out. : )

It is a pleasure!!

 

[chooks4life]

Thanks for the comments @ChickyChickens, @ChickenPeep and @chooks4life .

Chooks4life, you may be right about the mongrelising. The eggs were advertised on gumtree as pure breeds and I think they are, but it may be possible that there has been no genetic selection going on. I collected the eggs from the woman's husband and didn't feel comfortable asking him heaps of questions. At the time I was quite pleased that I could add to my flock without risking introducing disease.

I don't know if you know but some diseases are passed on through the eggs, as are some parasites. Some are also present on the exterior of the eggs. Just mentioning just in case you don't know.

Not to slander all Aussie breeders, but one thing you'll find a lot of is insane levels of inbreeding. It's got a lot to do with the restricted genetics in Australia, the early import bans, stuff like that, as well as the preponderance of breeders who claim they've been linebreeding (I prefer to just call it inbreeding since that's what it is) for up to 50 years with no new blood either due to preference or due to lack of alternatives. Don't know if you already heard about this one but earlier this year we had a massive import of over 4000 rare breeds, which were all destroyed because of some testing positive for Salmonella (which of course we already have in Australia). Insanity.

Why'd you feel uncomfortable about asking him lots of questions? Any chook enthusiast worth their salt will be more than happy to answer all your questions, and if they're not, that's generally a severe warning sign all is not well. It's also basically a responsibility to share the info you have on a given line you're passing on, since no line is flawlessly without faults.

I guess genetic selection seems cruel until you have to deal with the consequences on not doing it.

Very much so. I've witnessed this firsthand with my own, and with others' animals, so many times over. In the long run it's the kindest thing to do. The old 'it's expedient one should die to prevent the suffering of many' thing.

I also sent the breeder a nice text about the hatch rate and received no reply. It's certainly something I'd be pleased to hear if I was breeding.

Indeed. That is strange.

I can't keep roosters so if I keep Dotty there is no chance of her passing along her genes. However, if I sell/give her away to another backyarder in the same position she won't either. It would be so much easier if she would just crow. I'll also have a look at their feathers to see if any are translucent. It will be my first time advertising chicks and I've explained to my kids that you can't be fussy if your spare roosters are another person's dinner or pet's food, but I hope that at least the pullets will get to have long backyard lives. They seem ok with it. Having said that, I can't help wondering what sort of eggs Dotty will produce.

Likely to be noticeably poorer in quality since that's generally how it goes; when the hen looks ratty there's very little chance her eggs are going to look great. If they do look good from the outside, chances are they won't on the inside. Some hens like that produce very thin-walled or weakly shelled eggs, shows up when holding a torch behind the eggs.

Snowy managed to teach one chick how to get out of the run today. She perches on the door frame (which is raised), calls them, goes off and eats a bit of grass and then repeats. Very sweet to watch. Naturally it was Rumpless who figured it out so he had some one on one time free-ranging with mum before I helped the others out. : )

Very cute. Best wishes with them, and with your kids if any turn out to be roosters.

 

[cwrite]

@chooks4life , part of the reason I felt uncomfortable asking questions was that I was under the impression that it was his wife that was the chook person. My DH wouldn't have a clue if he was selling chooks while I was out. We were half an hour late to pick up the eggs so I couldn't be sure whether she intended to be there or not.

I read about a syndicate bringing chooks in, but didn't know what happened to them. That's just awful! Salmonella is treatable with antiobotics too. So senseless!

My close inspection is due this week-end but I have noticed that some of the other chooks are looking a bit ragged. I've been wondering if it's partly mechanical and the chooks just don't have enough space in the dog/nest box that they all still use so I picked up a huge dog box at the local treasure market this morning and we will see if it makes a difference. I took a few excellent pics of Dotty and whether the others are a bit cramped at night or not, she has problems with her feathers. I'm not sure what those undercoat feathers are called, but they are supposed to be fluffy. However, as you can see in the pic below there's no fluff. She's next to Baby who had a tough start, but apart from a very narrow face, looks relatively normal. It wouldn't surprise me if outward appearance gives an indication of other less obvious health issues. I'll see what extra tlc can do for Dotty & take it from there.



I managed to get a rare group pic yesterday while they were free-ranging. The chicks seem to have suddenly grown so big, especially when you compare their size to Snowy. After nearly 6 weeks, Snowy shows no signs yet of being tired of mothering her babies. She's such a good mum.


All my chooks love kicking the stones out of the garden beds. I'm working on a (hopefully) cunning plan to be implemented when we replace the edging that will put an end to this. It's all a learning curve & I am more than ready to claim some of my garden back. : )

 

[b.hromada]

How beautiful! Your birds are so pretty! Good job for Snowy, what a great mom she is! Thanks for sharing.

 

[ChickyChickens]

How beautiful! Your birds are so pretty! Good job for Snowy, what a great mom she is! Thanks for sharing.

X2!!!

 

[cwrite]

How beautiful! Your birds are so pretty! Good job for Snowy, what a great mom she is! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks b.hromada and ChickyChickens. : )

 

[cwrite]

On Friday morning I picked up an enormous dog box from a treasure market to replace the smaller dog box that all 11 chicks and Snowy are sleeping in. Of course, I didn't take into account how much chickens dislike change. Friday night I went outside to see why the chicks were peeping up a storm only to find that Snowy was roosting in the coop with the other hens. Some of the chicks were roosting in the run and others were frantically calling mum and running around on the ground. I put Snowy in the dog box and had to catch each chick and add it while barricading the exit. With the help of the window we removed from the cubby house and some bricks I managed to get everyone into the dog box. The same thing happened last night. I'm not sure if I should just put the old one back in now or continue with getting them used do the new one?



I'm wondering if broody raised chicks suffer separation anxiety when they go to their new homes if mum hasn't shrugged them off yet. Are they going to peep constantly for their mum? We didn't have this with our day olds that we bought from a hatchery.

I need to move the boys along to their new homes before they start crowing and I annoy my neighbours too much. I've put pics up of each chick here if anyone fancies taking a guess on their genders: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-weeks-old-australian-araucanas#post_14380437

I'm also going to install the mister I bought later. Yesterday it hit 35C (95F) and 67% humidity. It only went down to 28.5C (83F) at 11pm so not much relief at night at the moment. The chicks had chilled watermelon as a treat after enduring having their pics taken and being tagged (M,F,Unsure) with tiny zip ties so that would have cooled them down a bit.

Rumpless had a watery eye so that got a blast of terramycin and I'll keep an eye on it. It's my first possible infection. I haven't had lice, mites or any illness to deal with yet so I want to nip this in the bud. I'm pretty squeamish so try to avoid anything ick as much as possible.

Thanks for reading and hope you are all enjoying a cool week-end.

 

[chooks4life]

@chooks4life , part of the reason I felt uncomfortable asking questions was that I was under the impression that it was his wife that was the chook person. My DH wouldn't have a clue if he was selling chooks while I was out. We were half an hour late to pick up the eggs so I couldn't be sure whether she intended to be there or not.

Oh ok, fair enough.

My close inspection is due this week-end but I have noticed that some of the other chooks are looking a bit ragged. I've been wondering if it's partly mechanical and the chooks just don't have enough space in the dog/nest box that they all still use so I picked up a huge dog box at the local treasure market this morning and we will see if it makes a difference. I took a few excellent pics of Dotty and whether the others are a bit cramped at night or not, she has problems with her feathers. I'm not sure what those undercoat feathers are called, but they are supposed to be fluffy. However, as you can see in the pic below there's no fluff. She's next to Baby who had a tough start, but apart from a very narrow face, looks relatively normal. It wouldn't surprise me if outward appearance gives an indication of other less obvious health issues. I'll see what extra tlc can do for Dotty & take it from there.

Her down looks possibly 'clubbed'. Can indicate some deficiencies, there's a few defects with down which indicate genetic diseases too. But definitely not normal at all, and I really highly doubt it's an environmental problem (unless perhaps we're talking about something toxic in the environment but that's not looking too likely right now, as ubiquitous as some environmental toxins like lead etc are).

On Friday morning I picked up an enormous dog box from a treasure market to replace the smaller dog box that all 11 chicks and Snowy are sleeping in. Of course, I didn't take into account how much chickens dislike change. Friday night I went outside to see why the chicks were peeping up a storm only to find that Snowy was roosting in the coop with the other hens. Some of the chicks were roosting in the run and others were frantically calling mum and running around on the ground. I put Snowy in the dog box and had to catch each chick and add it while barricading the exit. With the help of the window we removed from the cubby house and some bricks I managed to get everyone into the dog box. The same thing happened last night. I'm not sure if I should just put the old one back in now or continue with getting them used do the new one?

If it doesn't get freezing where you are, they're about old enough to start perching, and if you want to bond chooks to a new bed location you often have to ensure they sleep there for about a week, either by replacing them every night or locking them in. It takes them time to bond to new locations.

The fact that the mother left them and could hear them calling and didn't respond means she's abandoning. Some mothers do it gradually, others very suddenly, and forcing the hen to remain with the babies once she's trying to abandon can lead to some hens attacking them. If she ignored their calling, best to take it as a sure sign she is finished with them. At this rate, chances are she's about to go back into lay, and she needs to restore her own health more, and can't support the drain they put on her (even when humans are feeding them it's a constant drain on them). Her body will be gearing up for her next reproductive cycle and priorities have changed.

I'm wondering if broody raised chicks suffer separation anxiety when they go to their new homes if mum hasn't shrugged them off yet. Are they going to peep constantly for their mum? We didn't have this with our day olds that we bought from a hatchery.

Some lines of chickens raised without mothers for enough generations have no filial instinct. They often don't know what to do with a mother anymore and are independent; it's not uncommon for hatchery breeds to disappoint the broody hen and her owners when bought and put under her, just because they won't take a mother.

Broody raised chicks do suffer some separation anxiety but it's generally very mild and very short lived, whether separated from her forcibly by others, or driven away by their mother. Often they're over it within a few hours, they're pretty independent and practical.

Plenty of chicks will also abandon their mothers if they are doing a very poor job of mothering, or they take too long to abandon the chicks, or if she can't provide enough for all of them, or there's enough abundance around for them to not need her, or if they see a better mother and are able to assimilate into her clutch and adopt her instead... I've seen some very diverse filial-maternal and even paternal interactions over the years. Some chicks will never abandon until the mother or circumstances force them to though, and some mothers don't abandon either, which leads to numerous issues for all birds involved.

Best wishes.

 

[cwrite]

@chooks4life I'm pretty happy that Snowy has done the 6 weeks for them to feather out, but I don't think she's quite ready to cut the cord just yet. I blocked her in for two nights and last night they settled in without a fuss. Part of the problem is that I put up a tall fence with wide holes so that the chicks can access the whole run, but that the hens can't get over because they got over the last fence and tucked into the medicated feed. I'm a few days away from getting eggs I can actually eat, now that the 2 week with-holding period is almost up.

Snowy still chases Hedwig off the nest if she's in there when she walk past and chases her off if Hedwig is mean to a chick. The others she just runs from, but I didn't have any fights reintegrating them so I'm grateful for that. Tonight when I went out to see where Snowy was going to bed, she was in the corner nest box (because she couldn't get over the fence) and somehow all 11 chicks had fit in with her.

Sweet & funny. I popped her over the fence and she cautiously entered the huge dog box with all the chicks following after. I might even be able to fit a small perch inside it. It must have belonged to a huge dog!

 

[appps]

I don't think I'd seen photos for a while, they are all growing up to be cuties

Interesting having no downy feathers on dotty. I wonder if it will affect her final adult feathers.