[The Shire] Our growing flock!

[newchickychick]

Poor Peanut didn’t make it. </3 I’m exceedingly grateful 46/47 Bantams are wildly active and healthy, especially after how many were in rough shape yesterday, but ugh. I sat with little Peanut for hours and hours trying to bring it back, but it just so quickly deteriorated. :[ I got to hold it and talk to it through the end but I wonder if there’s something I could’ve done better. I know shipping is super hard on chicks, especially Bantams, but bah. Peanut was a Porcelain D’uccle.

I do think it’s time we start naming everyone. I’m tired of calling them “the smaller rhode island red” or “one of the yokohamas.” Even if they end up not being permanent flock members, definitely giving them names so they at least can have their little chicken identification among us.

So far we’ve only named a few. My son picked Einstein for our Blue Polish and I gave him the homework of researching brilliant female scientists if it ends up a female instead for a different name. Brutus is the redeemed bully Gold Lace Polish. Toblerone is our Tolbunt Polish (named in honor of my favorite chocolate bars of all time). Gadget is one of the Americanas as she sticks her neck out suuuper far when she’s curious about something (‘go go gadget neck’). Gizmo is one of the other Americanas who’s usually around Gadget that looks similar but is missing her comically “angry eyebrows” marking.
That leaves us with a bunch more names to make happen. I’ll be trying to take glamour shots along with selecting names tomorrow.

Sad note to end the night off with, but going to try harder next time to be able to bring a bad off baby back from the brink. Will start tomorrow off right with some really nice pics, and hopefully some cute names to boot.

 

[newchickychick]

There’s another chick who’s slightly smaller than all the rest like Peanut was who’s making me nervous. I got it to eat a good bit of egg yolk yesterday from a syringe and gave it vitamins and water. Going to try that again today.
Had a silkie (the patridge one!) make me really nervous yesterday too. Gave it the same treatment and another drop of vitamins this morning, and it’s gone from scary lethargic to running around and eating and drinking with the others! I’m so relieved. I will be so upset with myself if we lose two of them from the three Bantam batches we got. </3 So very thankful it’s not looking like three any more.

I’m noticing a running theme with chicks who end up accidentally hopping down into the feeders: Americanas. We’ve had the Lakenvelder get in there once, but it absolutely did NOT like being rescued by the sky hand and proceeded to run around in a panic and warn its brethren once it was delicately placed back into the brooder that they were all in danger.
The Americanas I’ve had to rescue (Gadget, Gizmo, and now ???) though are all super grateful and Gizmo and this other baby now ended up being sweet towards me once they were free. I think Americanas/EEs might be an easy favorite for me as most so far seem to be easiest to warm up. But I’m still in love with the skittish babies. They’re doing their best.

 

[newchickychick]

Baby town! Silkie that had me worried was eating and drinking with everyone else this morning but seemed so so low energy after that. I made it eat some egg yolk and gave it a drop of nutridrench. I cleaned up its butt (had a little pasty butt) and then it pooped shortly after. It almost seemed like it was having trouble but it was a rather large poop. It still seems a little sleepy but I’m doing frequent checks to see how I can help. I think honestly it pooping seemed to help it. I wonder if it was backed up even though the pasty butt had to have been from early early am to now?

The other chick, the pale red chipmunky one, has been really scaring me since yesterday. I made it eat egg yolk and gave it water through the syringe and a drop of nutridrench. I feel awful, I think I gave it too much at once because it seemed like it was choking (looked like what one of the original chicks right out of the box on the first shipment was doing). I massaged its crop gently and helped shift it around gently (I know to not turn a choking bird upside down, thankfully!) and soon, it was cheeping! It was just about silent yesterday, so I was really happy it was mad at me. After a little bit of being back with the others… it DRANK ON ITS OWN! It wouldn’t hardly do that yesterday. I know they are unlikely out of the woods yet, but the progress really makes me feel like I’m not totally failing them.

They all love running on the wood shavings. I tried them out on it when we moved them to a bigger space, and they all got the zoomies! Their little leggies are so strong now. No more wobbles! I had never had chicks wobble before that first shipped order. Scary! They zoom from end to end, and go back to the lamp when they want to warm up and play outside of it happily. They’re so precious.

Rumor has it the diggy-hole crew is trying to get to the center of the earth. They heard the lava is really egg yolk. They intend to report back once they have reached the center.

The supervisor did not appreciate being called “precious sweet baby” while making sure the crew kept on task.

Drinking all on its own! Grow baby, grow! (Hubby had to run to get actual marbles so I’m supervising. The ones we had, were more like shiny aquarium stones and didn’t do much to help prevent drowning - hence why none in waterer for a little longer while I’m out here)

Snapped this pic before clearing out the waterer as this baby is RARELY ever still. It’s the “bald face” baby’s feathers coming in! Maybe it IS a sex link? But the barring doesn’t seem to really match what it looks like on one’s I’ve seen. Curious!
This is its baby pic! (Complete with a little bit of poop it stepped in and so kindly made sure got on my finger)

 

[newchickychick]

Absolutely heart broken. The patridge silkie that was worrying me has passed way, and another that I was not expecting. It had constant pasty butt despite it not being an issue past shipping day for any of the others. (I keep a close eye on temperature and they’ve got more than enough space). But I kept it clear, put a little vaseline on it to make sure it wouldn’t stick overnight, even tried a little olive oil as I’ve read to do.
Heartbroken that I’m really failing these babies.

Pistachio (named by my son), the OEGB that had been curled up on its back and struggling to breathe and had me so worried, STILL has me anxious but I have managed to keep it eating and drinking. It is no longer struggling to breathe from being so weak. It’s even taking a few steps at a time. I’m going to keep trying my best to save it. I really don’t want to lose 4 out of our 47. Ugh. I feel like an absolutely bad chick parent. Out of our many chicks, this is by far the most we’ve lost in one batch let alone so close together. It’s definitely my fault as we got them Thursday and Friday from being shipped.

Going to see if cat food will be a welcome little change for the baby. So far it’s only taken to egg yolk with a bit of nutridrench out of a syringe. I’m hoping I can encourage it to eat by itself. But it was HUNGRY this morning which gives me hope. Instead of closing its eyes and just occasionally swallowing what was given, it was eyes open and eagerly eating and drinking. Maybe I can still turn this around.

I adore these babies so much. I am determined to lose no more.

 

[newchickychick]

Everyone has had thorough pasty butt checks. Only one had it and oof, it was bad. I have never had to get the scissors out before but I did for this baby. It was so mad at me for getting all that off, but there’s no way it would’ve survived it staying like that. Best part is, it pooped right after and has been eating and drinking and running around since I did that this afternoon.

I know it may be too early to tell, but I think we’ve got two frizzles! I ordered 5 frizzle cochin bantams for kiddo. The other one is a little less obvious but the wings do seem to be curling out. We will see! The other one is red.

They normally do not pile up this much but I had just coughed and of course, they scattered and then piled up like their lives depended on it. I feel like a monster.

 

[newchickychick]

After how tough the past few days have been, I felt sick to my stomach waking up and fretting I would walk in to more heartbreak.
None at all! In fact, the very tiny Bantam who’d had an AWFUL recurring pasty butt since getting shipped… is great! I was able to super-clear it yesterday using a small pair of scissors and several attempts with a warm wet paper towel and even warm wet q-tips. Made it nip at a bit of chilled coconut oil too. Safe to say, the little chick was NOT my fan but I’m happy to say it definitely made a difference! It was sleeping like it was DEAD when I first got in there and my heart sank. But as I approached, one chick RAN to the far side of the brooder to see if I had left out little bits of food on a paper towel (they love to scratch it and peck up the food from there occasionally) and it got the whole crew up and moving.
The little darling has been named Raven, but will be Crow if it’s a boy as it’s a tiny stark black baby with a black beak and black feet and clean legs.

I’m thinking I see THREE babies with curled feathers on their wings coming in. Ideal’s pens are frizzle rooster over normal hens iirc which means it would be a 50/50 gamble. And honestly the randomness of eggs and the amount they send out, I honestly wouldn’t have been shocked if we had ended up with no frizzles. So very excited it’s looking like we may have THREE out of five! I told my son we’re going to research great ways to help keep the run cool in the summer but as warm as possible using the roof, substrate, etc. for more cold-sensitive birds. (Though, we’re planning to keep the coop open access in the winter in case of chill and get electricity hooked up to it so we could opt for adding in a heating/AC unit IF research shows it’s safe. I figured it would hopefully be safer than a heat lamp. Though if heat PLATES are even safer than a thermostat controlled system, I would certainly opt for that. We want safety but comfort for our chickens.)

Caught two of our little sapphire gems sleeping on a Turken each this morning. They’re so sweet!

But now I’m starting to wonder… how on earth do I take them out for field trips with there being so many? I certainly did not think THAT one through. Or do we give it another couple weeks for when it’s warmer and all have adult feathers in?

Either way, I’m still heartbroken about our losses this batch, but VERY thankful they’re now doing well. It’s SO funny to watch them run from end to end of the brooder. They adore the ample space they’ve got, but seem to keep forgetting they’ve got to step over or avoid their little perch toys and instead occasionally trip over them when zooming. The speed at which they stumble and recover while running is awe inspiring.

 

[newchickychick]

The chick who I'd had to seriously remove the pasty butt on is so NOISY today. Its crop is full, I've seen it drinking just fine, and running around! The brooder is definitely warm enough, as a bunch of the chicks like to run to the opposite side to scratch around before running all the way back under the lamp to warm up. There's occasional cuddle puddles but I haven't seen ANY shivering. I gave it a little nutridrench just in case. Granted, it's been noisy *every day* since we got it, it just seems louder today. I'm really wondering if I'm missing any of its obvious needs, but they've got 24% protein feed, it's definitely eating plenty, hydrating, got an extra boost of nutridrench, and brooder temp is good... Not to mention there's a TON ton of space. Pasty butt hasn't come back + I put on a bit of Vaseline on its vent JUST to be sure there's no struggle to go/nothing gets stuck. I'm befuddled! Maybe it's just a loud mouth? We did have one like that in our other current chickie batch. It grew out of it by two weeks old. Maybe it's just got really loud opinions. Keeping a very close eye on it though.

Some of these itty bitties are just way too cute for their own good. One scratched down under the shavings and looked absolutely confused as to why the shavings were gone. It turned in a circle a few times, stared back at the shavings next to the hole, looked back at the hole, looked around again at all the shavings, and then once more looked at the hole. Then it gave one of the softest little cheeps I've ever heard. I swear it was confused.

The "not a RIR" that was in the RIR bin at TSC is looking more and more "obviously not a RIR." I'll take pics later. It's so gorgeous! I'm definitely leaning Welsummer potentially? I'd love it if it's a Welsummer - adore those speckled eggs! Unless it's a roo. We seem to bring all the roos to our yard.

Our next to last batch of chicks will be shipped tomorrow. After how this last one's done, I'm extra nervous, but I'll be more proactive with getting the silkies a vitamin boost RIGHT when they get here and keeping an extra close eye. Don't need to sleep for a few days, right? Right. The rest is another rare breed surprise run. I can dream about a Tolbunt frizzle, right? My son really wants a buff laced polish, so honestly really crossing my fingers this order or the next has one of those two as he'd be over the moon with either. It might end up we have more Polish than any other type of chicken in our large flock, oops. At least they wouldn't be the odd ones out!

 

[newchickychick]

Oof, had one more pasty butt come back but I’m not surprised if the chickies find it stressful when we have to deep clean the other brooder. The garage door gets opened and there’s LIGHT and OPEN AIR. Temps are still reading perfect and they’re on a good 20% and 24% mix because some can’t QUITE get the bigger hunks of the 24% down yet (borrowing my folks’ blender to chop it up a bit tomorrow while I order one. Oops.)

Another chick seemed so listless and let me pick it up when I noticed it wasn’t acting right. When I picked it up I saw it wasn’t opening one eye! I went into full blown panic (shocker, I’m sure!) thinking oh no there’s a disease in this Bantam flock, what do I do they’re so little.
But I got a little damp compress and put it on the chick’s eye and sat and talked to it while I let that sit for a minute. It gave a little content chirp and then wanted to be put down after it had been so content for help before.
It was a little piece of dust from their food in its eye that came out on the cloth. Its eye opened wide! They’re so small but I never even thought about that. Agh! But thankfully after its eye opened up and it went to eat, drink, then ZOOMED to join the diggy diggy crew. Here I thought I was in for a night of quarantine, research, and no sleep. Never been so happy to be wrong. I still gave it a drop of electrolyte water as I haven’t checked in with them in an hour and was worried it had been listless for a little while.

Raven, the itty bitty all black one, was doing really well too! So, so happy. Its pasty butt hasn’t returned either! The silkies are thankfully doing so well too. They all had me so anxious with how wobbly they all arrived. I’m going to be sure to keep them up on a fantastic vitamin regiment as they grow. We’re going to put a calendar in each coop to write when each coop got treatments (ie in case of dusting for mites, special vitamins, whatever else needs to be kept track of) so there’s no over or under treatments. Time to find a cute chicken calendar!