YAY! The new birds are here...

[cluckinnova]

Aren't they pretty? These are Red Stars from McMurray. I'm a little irritated about the debeaking done at McMurray apparently by default, but I'll deal with it. Seems to cause them problems with eating. I noticed right off the bat it takes them a few tries to get a bug off the ground. They also didn't seem to want the Layena Pellets either. They were more interested in scratching at bugs in the ground then the pellets in the feeder. They all would walk up to the feeder and check it out, peck at it once or twice and then go back to digging for bugs.



One of them just couldn't wait to start laying. She dropped this one within about a minute of being let loose in the pen...


I have a larger run set up with plastic poultry netting that adjoins the door for this cage, but I figure I'll leave them penned up in the cage for the first few days so I know they're secure until they get acclimatized... I also plan on setting up a better automatic watering system(hence the 55g food grade drum in the background).

 

[BooBear]

Grats on your new girls.

 

[harmona1]

Beautiful girls! My first chicks were EE's and Red Stars, and one of the Stars grew up to be my absolute favorite hen! (Just lost her to the neighbor's dog on Mother's Day

) Enjoy them!!!

 

[theoldchick]

Got right to work, didn't they?

 

[cluckinnova]

Well, they seem to be eating better now(going through a ton of layena), but they're still not laying. The one that left me an egg the first day drops one every other day or so but that's it so far. They were supposed to be around 16 wks from mcmurray and I've had them going on 2 weeks now. So I guess that puts them right around 18 wks. I'm guessing they should start soon...

edit to add:
They're also plowing right through the oyster shell too so the lack of eggs certainly isn't from a calcium deficiency...