It's been crazy here with chicks growing and waiting on more to hatch. While the first 8 have been enjoying their sandy brooder, they have been growing so much that now they almost have no more fluff. We have been keeping an eye on their combs to see which ones are roosters and I have a good feeling that we only have 1. Can you guess which one it is? With them growing so fast it is also getting harder to tell some apart.
With it being warmer out, I decided it was time to let this young ones outside to have some fun in the sun. They loved playing in my flower bed of violas. It is kind of hard to see but there is 3 looking directly at the camera next to one another. It is still too cold to leave them outside at night. Yes, it still is cold here at night. It's been in the 40s, so I feel it is too cold for them. They chirp loudly even with the heat lamp off in the house that is 70 degrees. This does seem a tad odd to me as the other lot we hatched out ended up being outside with a surrogate hen.
Thumper is a Cochin who decided to go broody about the same time we started incubating these batch of chicks. We have never had a hen successfully hatch out chicks before or be broody at the same time we were hatching chicks until now. I read up on how to sneak them in to trick her into thinking they were hers. We were also concerned with how or if she would take to them. We moved her from our big coop a few days before the chicks were to hatch, into a smaller coop that would be big enough for the chicks to grow up some before venturing out into the run area. We also put golf balls under her so she would know she was sitting on something. The 1st night that the chicks hatched it was decided that we would put out 2 black star males. This way if we lost them it would not be a huge loss as roosters do not lay eggs, plus we do not need a bunch of rooster for our small flock. The little chicks were placed under her during the middle of the night, leaving the golf balls as we were going to add the rest if all went well. The next morning we checked and she was happily clucking about while they snuggled up under her warmth but darting out any chance they got. SUPER CUTE! We continued to check on her and the 2 chicks throughout the day and with everything going so well, we put the last of them out that night while it was still dark out. Out of 15 eggs only 8 survived. 3 Had hatched out but did not make it, 2 started to develop but stopped early on, and the last 2 were almost fully developed but for some reason just never hatched. Out of the 8 that survived; 4 are Rhode Island Reds, 2 males and 2 females, and the other 4 are Blackstars, 3 males and 1 female. I guess this was our karma for only having 1 male from the last batch we hatched out..lol Momma and babies are doing wonderful. We do check on them numerous times a day, daily. They run around peeping, while momma hen clucks at them and pecks at the feed and water to get them to eat and drink. I will say, it is nice having this batch of chicks outside already getting acclimated to the weather. I cannot wait for the older ones to finally be outside.
After having this last batch hatch out I realized that even if we do hatch any more, we need a better set up for chicks. Especially if we get a larger incubator. Plus I had originally planned on hatching more chicks in August, but was worrying about the what if's, as in no one wanting chicks at that time due to it going to be getting colder. Something to think about that is for sure.
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