The chickies have landed, and boy do I have some questions!

[ZepChick]

aah! Just looked at your babies

Oh they are so darn cute, enjoy them ~ Kim

 

[bonder]

I've only had chicks 2 weeks, so I don't really know much yet but here's what worked for me. I had one chick who looked weak and sick the first night I had him. I put an empty 12 pack

container, cut to be more open on the top in the brooder. I stuck the sick chick with some food and water in there, where he could be part of the group and get out but he was away from the

others so they couldn't see him to pick on him. He made it that first night and was trying to get out of the pop box in a few hours. I can't even tell which chick he was now. Good Luck!

 

[woodmort]

First of all, What is it with your local PO and hatchery? McMurray has the name and phone no. right on the shipping carton so even a quasiliterate postal employee can make a call. My PO calls at 6:30 am as soon as the truck comes in with the chicks then will let me come in immediately to the service entrance to pick them up. Of course I live in the country so maybe the clerks are more animal orientated. Also they won't deliver to a rural route--the birds a held in the PO until the owner comes for them--I assume they would leave a pick-up notice in a mailbox but never have had that happen.

Second: I always use a red light bulb with my chicks--whether it is the brooder lamp or the battery brooder I use for small hatches. This seems to prevent picking by the chicks since they can't see any sores or blood--once the birds can see an injury they tend to attack it. I've never had a problem.

 

[barred-rocks-rock]

On the subject of the Rooster numbers, I would keep one silkie Rooster and have 2 roos and 18 hens. Good luck with your chicks!

 

[mgw]

We bought 4 for chicks this spring for our tractor . 3 polish, 1 sultan. the polish picked on the sultan it was bleeding around its beak also. it went on for a few days then stopped, no trouble since then.

 

[tinychicky]

they're adorable

i just love chickies! we don't have any at the moment.... what color silkies? they look blue to me. good luck and

 

[Pineywoods Peepers]

Woodmort, it's the po's issue. When I got my chicks my name and # were clearly marked on the box with instructions to call immediately. Not sure why they didn't?? Too much effort perhaps?? Dunno.

Tried the red light last night and the one little chicks beak looks worse than ever this am. Not sure she's gonna make it. She seems lethargic and doesn't even try to get away when the others peck at her.

The dog crate I have them in has a divider panel so I put the divider about 1/3 of the way down the crate and then put the silkies and delawares on the small side. I put chicken wire up about 11 inches to keep them from just walking through the wire. Of course the silkies are small enough to pop through to either side... So far she's nit being picked in since being separated, but she's just laying around. When she does get up she walks around slowly with her beak up in the air. Maybe she's just stressed because I've handled her too much. Gonna try leaving her alone and just check on her periodically.

Rachel

 

[Pineywoods Peepers]

Yep, tiny, they're blue silkies. When I saw that color I just knew I had to have some.

 

[KingSpeck]

We had a similar problem with some young cockerals in our brooder. I put a blanket over half the brooder to keep one side semi-dark. The ones getting picked on would go in there whenever they needed to take a break. The darkness calmed everyone down a bit. We had to keep an eye on the temp though since the blanket would hold in the heat a little more. Solved the problem for us.

 

[backwoodsman4life]

Depending on the size of your family and the demand for eggs 25 hens may not be enough. for example. 3 families 4 people in each family 3 dozen eggs a week. thats 36 eggs per family x 3 families that is 108 eggs a week. your poor girls are gona have to produce 4.32 eggs a week to keep up with demand. thats not happening. really for this 108 eggs a week you will need 40 chickens get close to 108 eggs a week.