Baby Chicks and Raising Chickens

 

I forgot to really post or talk about this year's clutch of baby chicks. Since Grace has taken over all aspects of the chicken duties I don't really see them that much. Grace collects the eggs each day, cleans the coops, feeds them twice a day and changes their water, and visits them to check up on any possible problems. I really don't find myself out there that much. A couple of days before Easter our three eggs hatched. They are all doing well and currently age at 4 weeks but of course all the pictures are from the first few days. It truly never gets old seeing this guys hatch out and just standing in amazement of how God's hand is in everything.

 

Betty is usually our mother of choice because she is the best egg layer, sitter, and mother we have out of the 18 adult chickens. Due to currently having 18 adults we only wanted a few extra so three was the match number. Did you get the School House Rock reference there? Anywho they are growing and are now starting to be in the scruffy teenage years where the cutest is starting to wear off.

 

Grace is convinced they are all boys which would be a shame. It is always good to add a few females in the mix each year to keep up egg production. If we do have any males once they reach maturity they will need to be harvested. Raising chickens is a wonderful project for any young person. They learn responsibility, how to research when things go wrong, science, life skills, and so much more. Not to mention they are a lot of work and need to be looked after properly. We always have to be worried about where we are when it is roosting time to make sure the coops get locked up at night to protect from predators. If it gets dark and we are not home to lock up the coops, then then doors are still open to the coops and they are much more vulnerable to predators climbing in and attacking. We lost a chicken last week. She wasn't present at roosting time (we count all the chickens each night before locking the coop), just disappeared and more than likely was dragged away by a predator. Predators in our area tend to be hawks, opossums, raccoons, and those of the domestic variety (cats and dogs). Regardless of the sometimes sad moments like this week, raising chickens is a very rewarding activity and we will continue to do so as long as we can. The fresh farm eggs aren't to shabby either, especially with the amount we need for Trim Healthy Mama recipes and meals.

What is Your Chicken's Favorite Treat

We have tried many types of treats for the chickens over the past few years. Hands down their favorite is cheap, boxed mac and cheese. These guys come running from far and wide when they see me bringing out a pot. Normally we just feed them any leftovers from the previous dinner. But now that we are eating in a more healthy fashion, boxed mac and cheese is only on the menu about once a month. But was was not lost for the chickens because my husband went through a phase of prepping by storing lots of food. Well now we have lots of boxed mac and cheese that needs to get used. That is where the chickens come in. At least once a week I will bring them out a pot of mac and cheese and they love me for it.

Chicks are Growing Up

The last set of chicks have reached 5 weeks old. It was now time for them and mom to get out and stretch their legs a bit.  Hubby rigged up a section of fence to keep the bigger birds out for the moment.

To me there is nothing more fun than seeing the chicks hatch and watch them grow up.

Poultry Lessons - Blogging Through the Alphabet

Many of my readers are aware of the fact that we have chickens. We started raising chickens about 3-4 years ago mostly for the eggs, but occasionally we do harvest a few to eat. The harvested birds are usually roosters, troublemakers, etc. Many of my readers also know that I have been in the process of creating an ornithology science class for Grace's 9th grade year. Yesterday I was writing lesson plans for this class and the idea came to me to also include some study of chickens into her bird study. The book above is one of my favorites, mainly because of the beautiful watercolor pictures inside. This book also has much of the basic information a newbie chicken owner would need to know. So I thought I would share the Poultry Study with everyone else in case you were ever interested in doing it with your child. It is very simplistic and can be added to or taken away from to make this more in depth or easier for the young people. The pictures above from the book represent what we started out with. Our original flock was 6 old english game hens and 1 americana. Then about six months later we added 6 Buff Orpingtons. Then we had one go broody and didn't have any eggs to sit under her. We acquired 6 more eggs from a friend that were Buffs and Barred Rocks. Now anything else that hatches are mixes of all the above mentioned breeds. My birds have been very healthy and I am always reluctant to bring in any birds from other sources. So we just breed our own and end up mostly with mixes. Everyone but the Old English hens are good layers.

Grace will read the above book which is The Illustrated Guide to Chickens. It is 187 pages long and I plan on her reading 10 pages a day along with the other scheduled materials for this study. Here are a list of questions she will need to research and answer:

1. What happens when a chicken goes broody?
2. What temperature is best for baby chicks?
3. Who are the biggest predators of chickens?
4. What breeds are the best egg layers?
5. What are young male chickens called?
6. What are adult male chickens called?
7. What are young female chickens called?
8. What are adult female chickens called?
9. At what age do most chickens start laying?
10. What is molting?
11. How many hend do you need to feed a family of four?
12. What are some important items you need in a chicken coop?
13. How long does it take for an egg to hatch?
14. How many eggs will a hen lay in her lifetime?
15. How much room in a run should each bird have?
16. What is free ranging?

Our newest batch of babies.

Activities I have planned:

• Collect eggs from different breeds, weigh the eggs and compare.
• Incubate a set of eggs.
• Draw and paint favorite breeds of chickens or photograph.
• Create egg recipes and dishes.
• Pick a breed of chicken to research and discuss.

One of the babies that hatched in April.

I am linking up with Blogging Through the Alphabet at Ben and Me and The Barn Hop at The Prairie Homestead.

Chicken Updates

Well, first things first, the babies came out of the nursery today with their first taste of freedom. They loved every minute of it. Three nights ago they started roosting like proper grown up chickens. I have lost track of time but I think we are at 16 - 18 weeks old. We will be away from the home over the next three days a lot so they will need to be content in the nursery and on Sunday I will start letting them out on a daily basis.

Today also found Scott tearing down the old nursery. He had much help from the flock. The base of the nursery was built with many rocks. There favorite past time is having Scott turn over the rocks so they can search for bugs and worms.

One of the Buffs has gone broody, now I must decide if she gets to sit on eggs or not. The main problem is that the other birds will jump right into the nest with her and lay their eggs. I would need to mark all of the sitting eggs with a sharpie and check really well every day, otherwise more eggs will be added all the time.

C is for Chicks

I am participating with Ben and Me by blogging through the alphabet. Be sure to visit and check out what everyone came up with for the letter C this week.

I am also linking this to The Homestead Barn Hop.

As a family we started raising chickens almost three years ago. We started with 7 and have gradually grown to 25. Of course there have been others that were harvested along the way for one reason or another. Our primary focus for raising chickens is the eggs. Our chickens currently lay enough eggs for us to eat as a family and two barter with two other families for garden produce. 

One of our hens, Betty, went broody very early this year and wanted to start sitting in February. I held her off for a few weeks then just gave in and let her sit on some eggs. From that came four baby chicks that are now close to three weeks old. These guys are a mixed Buff Orp with Barred Rock. Both very good laying birds. Betty is an excellent mom. It never gets old watching these chicks hatch. Such a miracle! Also watching Betty teaching the babies to eat, drink and search for food.

Waiting for another hen to go broody and we will hatch a few more for this year. We try to add about 4-8 new birds a year to insure lots of eggs. Raising chickens has been a wonderful experience  and we have learned so much. Plus the eggs are very tasty!

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

No, not Christmas Time. The other most wonderful time of the year - hatching baby chicks. Yes, Betty went broody all the way back in February, but it was just too cold to try and hatch at that time. Well she stayed broody so the beginning of March I put some eggs under her. Low and behold between Thursday and Saturday we had four precious little chicks. I had to pay a pet sitter to come in and check up on them because we were out of town for much of the hatching. We are looking forward to more hatching once another bird goes broody.

Linking up with The Barn Hop at The Prairie Homestead. 

The Wandering Chickens

I have one rooster and five hens that refuse to stay with the rest of the flock and wander all day long. It started when they were 4-5 months old and we let them out of the nursery coop to join the rest of the flock. They soon learned (because they are game fowl) that they were light enough to fly over the run fence. At first I thought it was cute and we could find a way to contain them. My husband raised the run fence to six feet and still they can get out. I know most folks would recommend to clip their feathers so they cannot fly out. Hubby is against this because a month ago we had a chicken attacked by a predator and he wants them to be able to fly away if needed for defense. For the most part they hang around our house and don't bother the neighbors, but occasionally they do wander off. We currently have our hen, Betty, sitting on 8 eggs that will hatch this week. It has finally come down to decision making time - find a home for them or harvest them for the freezer. The rooster is beautiful and we would hate to harvest him, but you have to do what is best for everyone and his time may be short on this small homestead.

Be sure to visit The Barn Hop and check out all the great articles about homesteading, farming and living naturally.

Spring is Coming

Believe it or not Betty went broody almost three weeks ago. At that point I was like "Really" it had just reached the first week in February. Too cold to be sitting and raising babies. She is relentless and all the other chickens started laying like there was no tomorrow. I am getting 6-8 eggs a day right now. In two days time I collected 9 eggs for her to sit on. So in about 19 more days we will have baby chicks again. The hatching process and raising baby chicks never gets old. The miracle of life is amazing to watch. Of course if all 9 hatch that will put us at our max with about 25 chickens in the backyard. All of these chicks will be Buffs and all boys will be harvested at four to six months of age depending on their size. We already have two roosters that do not get along. Luckily the smaller of the two can jump the fence and hang out in the front yard all day until roosting time. Spring here we come.

Sprouting Seeds for Chickens

What to do for greens during the winter. This is our backyard. Very wooded lot that in the summer is completely covered with shade and nothing but a lot of red Georgia clay. Not very conducive to growing grass, not that the chickens would let the seed stay on the ground long enough to grow. In the spring and summer it is not that big of a deal because I supplement them with extra greens from the garden. As you can see in the first two pics rain has descended upon us and will stay until Friday. This creates a mud hole and very miserable chickens.

As you can see that thought I was going to bring some more treats so they all came out of their hiding places to greet me while I took a couple of photos.

My answer to no grass in the backyard in the winter (or anytime for that matter) is sprouting seeds a couple of times a week to share with the chickens. I had some leftover seed that we currently weren't partaking in and decided the poor chickens could use it.

I purchased this seed sprouter last year and it works great.

All together I can sprout three trays at a time. Just put this together so I don't have a picture to share of the grown sprouts. In about 5-7 days I will have some very happy chickens.

Happy Chickens

We have owned chickens for almost three years. They have always been in coops and runs due to predators in the area. We finally decided to fence in more of the backyard and let them be somewhat free range during the day. Our backyard has lots of tree coverage so we are not as worried as we once were about hawks, owls, and such. Today was their first afternoon out and about.

I was very curious to see where all the birds would end up tonight for roosting. Would they go back to their own coop or elsewhere, because we do have three coops. Well once nightfall came everybody went back to their original coop for roosting except for the rooster in the top picture. He found himself a new girlfriend in Betty the black easter egg layer and roosted with her instead. 

Current Science Project

Hubby created for us a home made incubator. We knew we wanted more baby chicks but none of our chickens are laying or sitting at the moment. Also didn't want to go through the trouble of ordering as well as paying for them. A friend gave us 24 eggs to hatch. This is the first 24 hours of incubation and I am having a little trouble. Humidity needs to be between 55 and 70 percent and temperature needs to be around 100. Well I cannot keep both to stay up at the same time. Either temp is too high or humidity is too low. I think we need a smaller bulb. Will change that out tonight. Hoping at least 12 of these will hatch. Twenty more days and we will see.

Every Once In A While You Get A Surprise

Can you see the tiny yellow yolk?

This afternoon we found the smallest egg ever from our birds. From the top photo you can see the egg is no bigger than a quarter. After showing it around to the family we cracked it open to see what was inside. A very tiny yellow yolk.

Baby Chickens Growing Up

I just realized last night that I haven't posted any updates of the babies. All seven are healthy and growing in two separate nurseries. Just switched the chicks to non-medicated chick feed so that in two weeks I can move both moms back in the main coop and combine the 7 baby chicks in to one nursery. Hoping everyone gets along.

New Arrivals

Yesterday all five eggs that Peacock was sitting on hatched. Five fuzzy, healthy chicks. Today they will be moved with their mother into the nursery coop. These eggs were given to us by a friend and are a mixture of breeds. I am pretty sure that 4 are Buffs but a little unsure of the black one. Hatching eggs is so much fun it kind of gets addictive. Our Game Fowl are great sitters so we might do another round of hatching in a couple of months.

Look What Happened To Us This Weekend

Betty's babies hatched. Only two survived but they are cute as anything. One chick hatched on Saturday and one on Sunday. Easter chicks. Betty is a great mother. So amazing watching her teach them to eat and drink. They crawl up into her wings for warmth. Love having baby chicks. More to come hatch in two weeks.

Nursery Coop

This is what I like to call the nursery coop. We set this up last year when Speckles sat on two eggs then hatched to females. They went 0ut to this pen at about 6 weeks of age. Betty went broody about 2 days ago, so I collected a couple of eggs each day until I had five for her to set upon. Last night after dark we put the eggs in a plastic nesting box and moved her to it. This morning when we woke up she had moved the eggs out onto the ground and built her own nest and is sitting nicely. As you can see from the photo just a little too much sun though. Tonight we will put up a shade so she won't get so hot. This afternoon now Peacock has gone broody. I have called a friend to to hopefully get some Buff eggs from her to put under her to hatch.

Chicken Update

This summer we let one of our broody hens sit on two eggs. They both hatched and we believe them both to be hens. Yeah, no more roosters. In the picture on the left is the run and coop of the adult game fowls. In the picture on the right is the nursery where the two baby chicks grew up in to 20 wk old teens after spending the first 5 weeks of their life in a brooder in our kitchen. There is fencing behind that big tree that connected both coops so the adult chickens and baby chicks have spent the last two months seeing each other every day but not able to touch one another. Today was the momentous occasion of integrating everyone. Scott cut a door between the two coops and let nature take its course. The only real worry we have is that the rooster (because he is not the nicest) might try to hurt them. But so far everyone is getting along great.

Here is mother and daughter getting to know each other again. Another update is egg production. We are getting 5-7 eggs a day. Just to give you an idea of what this many eggs looks like - I gave a dozen eggs to a neighbor 4 days ago, cooked 10 eggs for egg salad for a church dinner yesterday, 4 eggs for two separate desserts and 2 for breakfast yesterday. Guess how many I still have in the fridge? 17.

Egg Production

Over the past month egg production has been way down due to one set of birds molting and the other set being right on the cusp of age ready to start laying. As my previous post mentioned we received our first egg from the Buff two days ago. Well today we got another one. But here is the funny thing. I haven't been checking the nesting boxes for the game hens because they are still looking ratty and continuing their first molt. Today I thought I saw something in the third nesting box. I opened the hatch door and their wasn't anything in the third box but beside in the fourth nesting box Betty had been very busy. I found a clutch of five eggs that she had not been sitting on yet. This is the same bird that was broody off and on all Spring and Summer and would sit on absolutely nothing in the box. Now that she has a whole clutch she didn't want to sit. I feel so dumb for not checking the boxes and wasting five perfectly beautiful eggs. I will definitely be checking day from now on. It would be great to get back up to 3-5 eggs a day.

Look What We Found

Very momentous occasion today. Our Buff laid their first egg. Hopefully this is the first of many before the time changes. So exciting to raise babies from 3 days old to laying eggs. We saw her go in the nesting box this afternoon and waited every so NOT patiently for her to come out so we could check. Chickens are so much fun!