I needed grain on Friday and for the past several weeks I have had broody hens again. I checked the chick bin at the hatchery and brought home 9 new orphans for the momma hen who raised the last batch of chicks this Summer. new chicks 9 26 14 ( photo / image / picture from carolyn's Garden ) So far 8 of them have survived. I think they will all make it now, unless something gets them. grrrr! ( photo / image / picture from carolyn's Garden ) This is one from the last batch. I sent Caity out for grain and chicks the last time and she brought me back some... itty bitty chicks. Two turned out to be bantams, this one is a Silkie. a little silkie ( photo / image / picture from carolyn's Garden )
I really do enjoy your hen stories and pics. I can be so jealous of you being able to keep chooks, y'know. Tell me some more about the "orphan" status of the little chicks that you pick up at the hatchery from time to time. How does that work?
The hatchery has incubators full of eggs that are scheduled to hatch weekly. Not all of them get sold for orders or some people dont pick up their chicks, or they plan on extras just because they need to fill an incubator. They hatch thousands at a time. So most often when I go out there are extra chicks for sale in the bin at 1/2 he price of ordered chicks, you just haven't any guarantee of what they are other than being egg layers. They don't put roosters in the bin. The hen has no idea they aren't the eggs that never hatched while she was sitting on the nest( since I gathered them daily). I usually put them under her at nighttime when it's dark and quiet out there. all the hens are roosting and the chicks are quiet in the dark. They are seeking her heat and she "tucks" them right under her feathers as if they were all her babies and all is well in the morning. BUT this time I offered them to her when I came home with the chicks. She took 5 of them right away, the others were too noisy and were "getting on her nerves". She kept pecking at the other 4 so I brought those in the house for the day and took them back out to her in the evening. The smallest one died the 2nd day. I should have checked it closer than I did, but it was quiet in there and didn't notice it was not under her, but it had a pasty butt (which means the poop dried to the vent feathers and literally plugged up the exit and it died from not being able to get rid of its own poop)and I didn't notice it soon enough. Anyway, I get all pullets and she raises the chicks. it works rather well for me. She teaches them how to forage and find the waterer. All I need to do is keep the feeder and waterer filled.
What a great way to get more chicks. I used to have hens but none of them were ever 'broody' and I never heard how to make them that way. So much easier now with the internet to find out how things can be done.
Thanks C-- That is so interesting. We don't have anything exactly like that here. I do know folks that buy chooks at a young age though, I did not ask about the circumstances though. I must do that. It may be similar after all.
I'm really enjoying learning all about hens and chicks Carolyn. I knew about broody hens but had no idea that you had to introduce new chicks at night. This is what I love about GardenStew - there's always something new to learn. :-D
That white silky sure is a beauty! Every once in a while we throw around the idea of getting some hens. Maybe one day ...
2ofus, I don't do anything to "make" them broody. It is nature. This has been the "broodiest" year I and everybody I know who has chickens has ever seen. Some breeds are just more inclined to sit on a clutch of eggs than others. Now that little silkie I took a picture of, if that is a hen, she will be the best broody hen I will have. Silkies are used to raise expensive or fragile breeds. S, you probably have pretty much the same thing there as here for obtaining hen chicks. None of us want to end up with a yard full of roosters if we are planning on eggs from feeding them for the last 4 months...only to find them developing into roos, grrr!, so you probably have hatcheries that sex the chicks before selling them. That is an art and takes a good eye to see the difference between the chicks. The hatchery doesn't guarantee 100% pullets when you order chicks. Some chicks are called "sex-link" chicks. They are cross bred between two different breeds and the pullet chicks and the roo chicks hatch with different markings indicating that they are either pullets or roos. That is how I pick out chicks at the farm store in the Spring if I get a batch from there. They will have a box of golden buffs and the pullets have stripes down their backs and the roos don't. those are the easy kind to tell. Eileen, They are just fun. I know not everybody can have them or wants to have them, but how can we learn if others don't contribute? so, I pop a few pics every now and then. Gardening is fun, too, but since all I do is mostly vegetables and farmers markets and I have posted most of that every now and then, these are always different. Life is slowing down a bit here, though. Hopefully I will have more time to contribute more. Netty, the silkie is little. Many people are getting the bantams because they are little. They still lay a usable egg, but it is 1/2 size, so you would use two instead of one....maybe one day, huh? animals have a way of tying you down though. Lots of planning if you leave for a few days or vacation. Obviously, I dont get away much. We are heading for conneticut in a few weeks for a weekend, but one of the kids is staying home so that makes it easy. Otherwise I wouldnt be going.
C--After thinking about it, I believe that you must be right. I know two elderly gentlemen here that get new chooks each year. One man hasnt had probs with too many roosters, but the other one has. This year, for instance he bought six chicks and all were roosters except two. He gave those away and bought more. This time they were all hens. Yeaaaa!. Anyhow, thanks for the info. I find it interesting.
I think by now most people realize I am frugal (or a tightwad). While I was picking out the chicks the otherday there was another bin that had maybe 8 chicks in it that were quite a bit bigger than day old chicks...like maybe 6 week chicks. I asked what they were and she said "oh, those are really expensive chicks... they are called Jubilee's" so I said okay... (I wasn't interested...in expensive.) and ignored them (they were at the ugly stage anyways!) So today I was curious about them so I looked at the web site to see if they had them listed..... uh huh! and I see why they are still in the bin.... They were 99.00 each . I like chickens, but not enough to spend 99.00 on one chick, which was the limit by the way.... I wonder if they will let someone buy more than one since there were so many in the bin, now?
Whoa! Ninety-nine dollars for a chick? And I thought our first egg ($69) was expensive after we figured in the cost of the playpen with heat, starter food, and all the lumber/wire we put into the barn coop and outside coop. That has to be the hen who lays the golden egg!
yep! 99.00 for a pullet and 50.00 for a roo. Beautiful chickens...just not that beautiful. https://www.meyerhatchery.com/productin ... rodID=JBOS
Well, Lookie, lookie what I missed. That's what I get for being busy all day. Carolyn, Your babies are sure cutie. I started with 40 dollar chickens. Wouldn't do that again. I surely wouldn't get one for 100 bucks. Although I have been known for buying tropical fish for many many more hundreds than that. Keep adding chicks and you'll catch up with me soon.
One year my mother and I bought 100 straight run white leghorn chicks from a hatchery in Michigan. We were hoping for 40% hens. That didn`t happen! Had more roosters than we knew what to do with. Maybe got 20 pullets. Every time we walked out the back door you had at least three roosters on each leg trying to beat the tar out of you. When they reached fryer size they went into the freezer. I went back to Rhode Island Reds.
