All Sorts Acre

May 13, 2011 Posted by niffer in Chickens

Chick Season

No doubt, this is chick season. This past week, and for the next few weeks, we will be consumed with chicks. Today we picked up our first broiler chicks. These chicks will end up as meat birds. they grow fast and taste good. (Sorry to all the vegetarians out there). Doing meat birds was a big thing for us. we have heard horror stories about the White Rock crosses, the standard meat bird, that made us shudder slightly. Everything from they drop dead (which they do) to they appear almost featherless when they are older. These birds grow FAST. Too fast for their poor little organs to handle. They don't make adulthood. Because of all this we decided to go for the slightly slower growing birds that seemed just a bit more normal and less franken bird like.

They other chick thing we have been monitoring is that we have a number of our own eggs under broody chickens and in the incubator. they started hatching out yesterday and we will be monitoring the process for the next few days. We currently have three broody hens with perhaps 15 or so eggs. the rest are in the incubator due to start hatching tomorrow. With any luck we should have almost 50 new chicks to grow out for laying. So far we have five new chicks and counting!

They are sooo cute!

Tags: broiler, chicks

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September 15, 2010 Posted by jennifer in Chickens

Chick update

Earlier in the year we tried to hatch two lots of chicks from our Chanteclers. None of them hatched and only a fraction were fertile at all. It was really disappointing as we were hoping for another batch of chickens. We tried one last time before winter. Once again we didn't think that any would hatch. They did. We didn't try many as the Silkies can only handle so many eggs. to our surprise four out of five eggs hatched. ONe was a Maran influenced egg as it looks like a Maran chick. I am curious to see how it develops.

All of the chicks are still with their two Mums. It is a different ball-game to have mother hens looking after the chicks. The hens are really taking care of their chicks. It is so cute to watch the chicks run around with the Mums calling them back, jumping up onto Mum's back and burrowing into their feathers to stay warm. We still have a heat lamp in there, but it isn't nearly so much of a concern. Also they are already going outside during the day. If they chicks get cold Mum will warm them underneath her. I highly recommend hatching chicks with a Mum hen!

We may only have another two hens from our flock, but they will truly be All Sorts Acre hens!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Tags: chicks, Growing

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September 4, 2010 Posted by jennifer in Chickens

Our first chicks!

We have had our first homegrown chicks hatch today. So far we have three happy and healthy chicks. Hall and Oates have been co-sitting on the eggs. They seem to be quite happy to share the responsibility of being a Mum.

I have just helped a fourth chick out of it's shell which it had cracked open a few hours ago.

The brooder coop is all set up and ready to be home for a while. This is so exciting!