Windy hill chickens - first flock(s) of my own

[kattabelly]

The babies!

They're mostly 16 days old now, give or take a day. Only 3/8 of the Plymouth Barred Rock eggs were fertile - apparently that was starting to be a pattern and the cock has since been switched for another. I guessed two were male and one female and pretty much sure of that now their wing feathers are coming in. All the Shetland eggs were fertile but 3/10 quit towards the end and one got as far as pipping but then died. Not uncommon with these apparently. I find it really hard not to be too hands-on with hatches, so of course I was kicking myself for not intervening with that one for once.

Another Shetland hatched with what I thought was an umbilical hernia at first - very pink and visible small blood vessels - but turned out to be just unabsorbed yolk. There was a fair bit of it and the naval was already closed around it, so I had to tie and cut that off. Chick was tiny and very skinny but I spent the first day doing regular egg yolk feeds and it was soon able to manage in with all the rest. It's still smaller than all the others from this hatch but otherwise seems to be thriving. It worked out early on that the biggest BR chick is tall enough and greedy enough to act like a combination radiator / creep feeder, so they spend a lot of time together.

Creep feeder in action

All three BR chicks are really bold and friendly. The cockerels are handled on my terms, rather than cuddled, now they're not brand new babies but the female is the friendliest of the three and often the first to seek me out for some attention. Right after I took this photo the other day, she hopped up and perched on the edge of my phone while I took snaps of the others. Not sure how she'll work out as a shoulder chicken once she's fully grown!

This hatch had bad luck with the weather, so they didn't get to spend as much time outside the first week but trying to make up for that now. It's helpful that there are more of them, and the older chicks will pile into the pet carrier with them if it's especially cold, so they're already happily running around in the wind and rain for hours and only needing shelter and their own combined body heat to stay warm. If I'd been more organised getting things sorted they could really be outdoors full time now.

 

[kattabelly]

It's been really wet here but the rest of this week is meant to be mostly dry, so I can go back to having them out all day without worrying about the smaller chicks. Struggling to get what I need to fix up their outdoor space at the moment as the local place hasn't had a regular delivery driver for a while, so I might end up having to buy a small coop to use for now.

Can't get turkey feed but I found a bag of white fish that had come open and got freezer burn, so I'm using that for extra protein for now.

 

[BDutch]

Just want to say I enjoyed reading your thread and following.

 

[kattabelly]

The 5½ week olds ended up staying out last night.

Not at all planned but the cockerel that's already down to be culled sometimes gets in a huge flap over nothing. That then sets the rest of them off, so they were all running about panicking when it was time to go home and I knew I'd never catch them in time to get to an evening class I teach. There's a little covered shelter filled with hay in their current daytime run, and they've only been roosting for just over a week and still sleep in a heap during the day, so I figured they'd be fine sleeping there and I could come and get them after.

Went back around midnight - this time of year, it's only just getting dark here then - and found them all happily roosting on the arms and back of a plastic garden chair. They didn't seem cold from their spacing or posture, so I just left them to it. Brought some warm mash up for them at 5am and they ate a bit then went right back to scratching for bugs.

Lowest temp last night was around 9C/49F and wind was a steady 10mph gusting low teens.

 

[BDutch]

The 5½ week olds ended up staying out last night.

Not at all planned but the cockerel that's already down to be culled sometimes gets in a huge flap over nothing. That then sets the rest of them off, so they were all running about panicking when it was time to go home and I knew I'd never catch them in time to get to an evening class I teach. There's a little covered shelter filled with hay in their current daytime run, and they've only been roosting for just over a week and still sleep in a heap during the day, so I figured they'd be fine sleeping there and I could come and get them after.

Went back around midnight - this time of year, it's only just getting dark here then - and found them all happily roosting on the arms and back of a plastic garden chair. They didn't seem cold from their spacing or posture, so I just left them to it. Brought some warm mash up for them at 5am and they ate a bit then went right back to scratching for bugs.

Lowest temp last night was around 9C/49F and wind was a steady 10mph gusting low teens.

Make sure they don’t make a habit to roost outside. A garden chair sounds like a very unsafe place to spend the night.

Do you have more than enough roost and hiding spaces for new youngsters in your coop? If not it might be a good solution to add extra roost space behind a divider. Or add another coop for the new chicks where they can roost seperated from the other chickens.

 

[kattabelly]

Make sure they don’t make a habit to roost outside. A garden chair sounds like a very unsafe place to spend the night.

Do you have more than enough roost and hiding spaces for new youngsters in your coop? If not it might be a good solution to add extra roost space behind a divider. Or add another coop for the new chicks where they can roost seperated from the other chickens.

They're inside an enclosed run and there aren't many predators to worry about here. Obviously they need to have somewhere dry and sheltered to roost but I don't mind if they choose to sleep outside sometimes when the weather is good. The run is more to keep them off people's vegetables when I'm not around to supervise free-ranging than it is to protect the birds.

I'm fixing up the setup that someone else abandoned a few years ago, so currently the teenagers are in the only coop that was useable with just minor repairs. It's taking longer than I planned, partly because some businesses are struggling to recruit drivers here so you can order building materials and be told they'll hopefully phone in a few weeks with a delivery date. I've ended up ordering a Nestera coop to get them all outside next week - should be easy to sell it on if I decide not to keep it.