Virginia

[DufferChick]

I am in west side of Fairfax County, near Loudoun.    Let me know if there is a get together, please!

Will do. Will let everyone know if we have a local get together. When the weather settles down, I may host a meet & greet. We have plenty of space,

 

[DufferChick]

I am also in Fairfax, and got my 10 chicks, various breeds, in October. Got our first egg today, woohoo! Just when I was starting to give up hope! They kept kicking all the hay, plastic eggs, etc out of the egg boxes, so I was beginning to wonder if they had any idea at all about what they are supposed to do in there, lol.

CONGRATULATIONS on your first egg! Makes all the trouble worth while. I got my first egg in December. I took all kinds of pictures. I still treasure every egg.
I currently get all brown eggs. This Spring I am expanding my flock to include hens that lay blue/green/olive eggs.

 

[Tappy4me]

SLWs to the left. Today is day 4 or 5 of us having them.. (my days are running together lol). I can't believe how much they've grown.
They are starting to mingle with the buffs a bit. But still skittish of them. lol

They were against the sides of the brooder in the pic due to me standing up..not from it being too hot. They're all sprawled out everywhere right now.

 

[Animals970]

SLWs to the left. Today is day 4 or 5 of us having them.. (my days are running together lol). I can't believe how much they've grown.
They are starting to mingle with the buffs a bit. But still skittish of them. lol

They were against the sides of the brooder in the pic due to me standing up..not from it being too hot. They're all sprawled out everywhere right now.

What are the little yellow, pink, and green things in there?

 

[Tappy4me]

What are the little yellow, pink, and green things in there?

Cat balls for them to play with haha. They peck at them and kick them around.

 

[Animals970]

Cat balls for them to play with haha. They peck at them and kick them around.

Aww, that is so sweet. So, are they just the little balls that are kinda like tennis balls, just smaller. Or are they the balls that have the rattles in them? Do they enjoy them?

 

[Tappy4me]

Aww, that is so sweet. So, are they just the little balls that are kinda like tennis balls, just smaller. Or are they the balls that have the rattles in them? Do they enjoy them?

Plastic whiffle balls with bells in them. The buffs seem to really enjoy them already. They were going after them in just the first few minutes in the brooder. The SLWs are still trying to figure them out, though they accidentally will send one flying around while foraging, which seems to startle them. They're really skittish. :/

 

[pysankigirl]

We have 2 broodies with 6 pipped eggs and one chick out! I also went to a local and picked out some day-old opringtons to stick under them as well because there was a pretty big loss rate on the shipped eggs I gave them to sit on.

I wonder how many times tonight I will wake up to go check on them...LOL

 

[Tappy4me]

And...since I posted about the SLWs being really skittish, they've now proven me wrong. I went to offer chick food on my hand, as I've been doing and they just run around and ignore me the past few days. Well after seeing the buffs do it with no issues, albeit still skittish, I had 5 of the 6 eating out of my hand earlier! I was also able to rub a few of their bellies. So excited that they've figured it out!

 

[DufferChick]

[COLOR=333333]We have 2 broodies with 6 pipped eggs and one chick out!  I also went to a local and picked out some day-old opringtons to stick under them as well because there was a pretty big loss rate on the shipped eggs I gave them to sit on.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=333333]I wonder how many times tonight I will wake up to go check on them...LOL[/COLOR]

Very cool! If any of my hens goes broody, I would love to see her hatch and raise chicks. I do not plan to use an incubator to hatch eggs.

I just purchased guinea chicks this week. They are very different than chickens! We plan to let them forage all day. But they will need to be penned up until summer so that they can be trained to know where home is. I don't want to raise them, only to have them fly away. In one week, they have nearly doubled in size and are starting to feather out on the wings. This is totally a different adventure than raising chickens. You have never seen "skittish" until you have seen guinea chicks!