Sunday 11th June 2017
Chicks, chicks, chicks
Away from our not such great successes in hatching turkey poults (see 7th June)... back in the main poultry area, our chicks are all doing really well!! We have a total of 33 at the moment and if we ignore the batch of 12 Indian Game eggs that due to a rubbish fertility rate (only 5), 3 dying in the shell and then 2 being crushed by a rubbish broody (!!), our stats are good. We have a hatch rate of 70% which if we only count fertile eggs rises to over 80% and so far our survival rate is 94% (we have lost just 2 chicks: one a disappearance and the other a fatal pecking from another broody hen).!
Interestingly though, we already have ‘mums’ that have given up on their charges. First off was our Hedgerow Broody who abandoned her six chicks last week when the chicks were only just 4 weeks old. She of course is one of Queenie’s granddaughters and Queenie herself usually abandons her chicks very early on too. Then there is Hedgerow Broody’s mum QBP (Queenie’s daughter) who gave up on hers yesterday; her chicks being five and a half weeks old. HOWEVER, these chicks now have a foster mum in the form of our oldest Indian Game who had been broody but had just never settled to sitting on her own clutch of eggs. She has been ‘hanging around for a while and at night the two adult birds had been sharing the job of keeping the chicks warm. Now that QBP is back up on the main perches, our Indian Game has seen her chance and this evening she was proudly looking after all eight youngsters and looking very snug (and smug!!)
Our Red Leghorn cross is also trying to distance herself from her chicks, although over the weekend some of her chicks and Hedgerow Broody’s had started to work out how to get to the main perches and so were ‘finding’ their mums that way. Another mum, our IG cross from last year is also back on the perches and has been for a good week now BUT she has taken her chicks with her from the beginning. Quite how they got up with her is a mystery: at just 4 weeks, it was a remarkable feat.
The photos show a pure Indian Game chick and a Copper Maran. The colours on the former are stunning.. the developing comb on the latter looks as though we may have a male here - bit too early to tell really but we would not be surprised if this turns out to be a cockerel!!
Our Red Leghorn cross is also trying to distance herself from her chicks, although over the weekend some of her chicks and Hedgerow Broody’s had started to work out how to get to the main perches and so were ‘finding’ their mums that way. Another mum, our IG cross from last year is also back on the perches and has been for a good week now BUT she has taken her chicks with her from the beginning. Quite how they got up with her is a mystery: at just 4 weeks, it was a remarkable feat.
The photos show a pure Indian Game chick and a Copper Maran. The colours on the former are stunning.. the developing comb on the latter looks as though we may have a male here - bit too early to tell really but we would not be surprised if this turns out to be a cockerel!!