Chick segregation no more - in the new home

The chicks are all growing so fast.  This second batch is not as people-friendly as Chicken Little, our first hatch.  I don't handle them as much since there are so many of them.

They all needed to be in a bigger "home".  They can't be outside yet because it is too cold and the other chickens who are adapted would probably kill them.   Same for Chicken Little.  So we built a big sturdy wooden enclosure for them.  It is in the basement in a small, rarely used workshop room.



Prior to this Chicken Little had been by him/herself in a box and the chicks in another.  We started by introducing CL by just peeking in the box.  CL seemed interested.  We did this for a couple of days.

After that, when the box was ready I actually integrated them all together in the box below.  Yes it was tight but I figured it there were any problems I'd know quite quickly.  I observed no problems and just kept checking on them.  No squawking or any distress noises so it was going well.  They were all getting along fantastic.  I think CL was finally happy to have some company.  The other chicks may not have been as happy but since they are smaller then CL they were forced to accept him.

So they all are doing great being together and in their new home. CL now has to share the mirror and the other chicks seemed kind of fascinated by their reflection.

I can't wait until it gets warm enough for them to go outside and live, eat drink, etc.  That day is coming soon. Till then they are quite content in their new digs.

Chickens on Amazon and more.

I've always heard you can get just about anything on amazon so I decided to check this out for myself. Specifically in the area of chickens of course.  Bear with me here because I am saving the best for last.

There are incubators that are cheap (small) like this one for under $25

 

and more expensive ones like this one for $469.00

Personally I'm glad we were able to make ours with stuff we already had around the house.  Lucky us.

Surprisingly I did not find any fertilized chicken eggs but did come across an incubator (like the yellow one above) that comes with 4 fertilized quail eggs.  I think I'm going to pass on that one for now.

All of this blogging, picture taking of chicks, cleaning the chicks homes, feeding and watering them can really be stressing.  I need something to help me relax.  I'm sure amazon has something for that too.  Oh yes, let's just see!!

Bingo!  Amazon does have the answer:  The "Relaxman Relaxation Capsule"

 

 Ok, so at $39,995 it is a little out of my price range by about $39990 but hey, who's counting.  Reading about it and the reviews posted on Amazon was the next best thing.  After reading some of the reviews over the last few days I knew I could no longer keep this secret to myself.  I laughed a lot and can say I am really relaxed.  Plus I saved myslef $39995.00

Check it out on Amazon and be prepared to laugh:
http://www.amazon.com/Relaxman-Relaxation-Capsule

Enjoy!

Chicken Little Escapes

Well tonight Chicken Little made a daring and noisy escape.  Hence CL didn't get very far.  Cl was caught in the act literally.

CL has pretty much outgrown the box anyway.  CL doesn't know it yet but he/she is getting new digs with much more room.   We have so much scrap wood and chicken wire around that building something is an easy task.  CL is just not big enough yet to be integrated with our bigger chickens.

We're thinking that CL may be a girl now since we see no signs of a comb.  What do you think? Leave a comment and tell us your thoughts.

Todays Chick Flicks!

Not much to report but here are some new pictures of our chicks and also of Chicken Little who is now over a month old. The chicks are 1 week old today except for the one leghorn who will be one week old tomorrow.

After 1 week this Leghorn already has the start of feathers:

Here's chicken little who is not so little anymore.

These chickens are a lot of work.  They mess up their boxes quickly and it needs at least daily clean-up.  If anyone would have told me years ago that I would be hatching and taking care of chicks I would have never believed it.  Who knew?

Splayed leg chicken and how to fix it

We have noticed that one of our chicks has the splayed leg that we have heard so much about but never experienced.

How to help the chick and fix the splay leg?

Well I did a google search and found out a simple band-aid can help.  Cut the band-aid in half lengthwise and place each chick leg at the edge of the white pad and then wrap each end across the chick leg and onto the white pad.  The white pad is the exact length apart the chick's legs needs to be. Here's how the band-aid should look after cutting it.

This chick is on it's second band-aid. The 1st one wore off rather quickly.  Usually they only need one from what I've read but sometimes they need more time.

Here are 2 close-ups of the chick with it's band-aid on.

This chick is walking so much better and should be fine. Who thought the solution could be a simple band-aid.

The 2nd Leghorn chicken is hatched!

We got a 2nd leghorn.  Just like the other one this one needed help too.  It actually seemed to be ok and working around the egg but then it just stopped and kept chirping.  So this one got help too.

Here is before we helped:

Here is the chick after it hatched.  Still very frail and week but no blood and only a little bit of feces on it when it came out of the egg.

It's doing well now as you can see.

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Helping the 1st Leghorn Hatch - Sunday 2-13-11

I'm back after a brief hiatus.  Just been so busy and haven't found time to update until now.

On Sunday we realized the 1st white egg with the leghorn chicken was having a problem hatching.  So against sound advice, I decided to help it hatch.  Some of the pictures I will post look kinda gross and bloody.  They look bloody because you can see the chickens pink skin through the egg membrane and it looks red when the membrane is wet.

Happy to say though, this one hatched successfully and needed very little help afterwards.  It is now thriving on it's own and it is a bit aggressive, just like it's mother.

In the image below, I have removed some of the eggshell and of the membrane. You have to be SO CAREFUL when doing this.

This next picture show the shell completely removed and the membrane is wet where you see the red.

This next picture is right after the chick is born.  You can see some blood and some feces which I did clean from him.  The chick is exhausted.

Here is the chick a bit later after getting some rest, food, and water.

Here is yet another picture.

So this little guy made it.  I tried to help two other chicks out of their eggs.  I hatched them, they had pipped but had gone no further. I removed their shells and helped them out.  They were so frail.  I fed them food/water but they did not make it through the night.  So not all do well when you help them out. I'm not posting pics of those chicks for obvious reasons.

After we got done hatching the 1st leghorn we saw a 2nd leghorn egg had been pipped. Wow!  We are excited about this!

Check back for more updates.