Remember me telling you about my broody hen? Well, the chicks hatched five days ago! Yay!
There are two solid black ones, a solid yellow one, and four striped ones. I love the striped ones, they remind me of little chipmunks.
There are seven total, but one little black chick has been sickly from the start. I really don’t expect it to make it through the night, though I’ve tried to doctor it the best I can.
After all of the chicks hatched out, I moved the mama hen and chicks to a doghouse out in the common run with the rest of the hens. Then I surrounded the house and a bit of scratching area with small mesh wire to keep the other, curious chickens away from the babies for the first few days.
Having chicks separated from the rest of the hens is also a good idea because baby chicks eat different feed. Chicks and the mama hen will eat chick starter. The rest of the flock eats corn and laying mash. It is very dangerous for chicks to eat laying mash as the extra protein can cause major complications in the growing chicks. And so, it’s just easiest to separate them for now.
I had also ordered baby chicks online before we had a hen go broody. We got 12 Rhode Island Reds, and 13 Black Stars, all hens. Plus, McMurray Hatchery also threw in a mystery “exotic” breed. It’ll be fun to see what that one ends up being!
Anyways, our shipment came in yesterday! We got a call from the post office at 6:30am that they were here. Jerry was sweet and went to pick them up for me.
They arrived in a pretty small box:
There was a lot of chirping coming from it as Jerry brought it into the house. I held my breath as I opened the lid, fearful of finding dead chicks inside, as I’ve heard tales of happening to others:
What a relief to find 26 healthy, happy and hungry little babies inside!
We put them in the brooder right away:
The chirping woke the kids up, and they all rushed to crowd around the box, super excited to find our newest members:
If all goes well, by this time next year we’ll be up to our eyeballs in eggs. Ha!
A city girl learning to homestead on an acre of land in the country. Wife and homeschooling mother of four. Enjoying life, and everything that has to do with self sufficient living.
Your girl did good, Kendra! Congrats! Our baby we just hatched is strong and growing. We have a four hens, 4 months old, from McMurray, too. But one of them has scoliosis, which is apparently caused from inbreeding. It’s very sad and we thought we were loosing her this week–her head got bound up under her wing and she couldn’t breathe. She snapped out of it, but I imagine it will continue to plague her, bless her little heart.
Looks like total fun!
We hatched our first brood this spring too on April 23rd. All 5 made it and are doing fantastic! Ours all came out gray as the roo was a blue cochin. And all have the cochin legs and feet. I can’t wait to see what they are mixed with. We didn’t mark the eggs, but we know at least 2 are americauna mixes. 🙂 Is your hen a black australorpe by chance? We just got a pullet of that breed. 🙂
Congratulations and good luck! :o)
How exciting and are they ever adorable!!!! What excitement around your place. Enjoy as they grow so fast!
Congrats! My parents have 50+ chickens, all exotic and all from McMurray. They’re so fun, especially since she has 15+ varieties, great entertainment and an awesome assortment of eggs. Enjoy!