The baby chicks are grown up.

I'm overdue for a post.  The baby chicks are getting big.  They're pretty much on their own now.  It was interesting.  The momma hen just one day decided she wasn't going to mother them any more.  It was like a switch was flipped.  It was that fast.  It took a few days for the chicks to figure it out.  She would wander away with total disregard for what the chicks were doing.  They would notice that she was gone and hurry to find her.  Then I noticed that she wasn't staying with the chicks at night.

July 24, hen and chicks sleeping in the nesting box.

July 28, hen on her own and the chicks are still in the nesting boxes.

She even started laying eggs again. 

It's hard to get chickens to hold still for pictures.  I managed to get a couple pictures of the chicks at this point.  I think one of them may be a rooster.  He's going to have to go.

 It'll probably be spring before any of them start laying eggs.

They are pretty birds.  They're still skittish though.  We didn't handle them when they were young so they don't get too close to us now. 

Baby chicks at one month.

It's been just over a month since our baby chicks hatched.  We started with 11.  We're now down to 6.  I'm really hoping that all of the ones we lost were roosters and than that the remaining birds are all hens.  What are the odds of that being the case?  Probably not good.

They're quite a bit bigger now, so hopefully the rest of them will make it.

They still stick close to the mother hen, and she's still pretty protective.  Supposedly at some point she'll lose interest and just let them fend for themselves.  At that point she'll be done being broody and go back to laying eggs. 

An update on the remaining chicks.

I was away last week.  During that time my wife found the mother hen on the wrong side of our fence a few times.  We think she was chasing away a hawk.  I don't remember how many times it happened, but we are now down to 7 chicks.  We started with 11.  That's better than we did last year (so far).

I count 8 chicks in this picture.  One of them has disappeared since it was taken.

The chicks now sleep in the coop with the mother hen.  There were quite a few nights when they would just honker down under the coop by themselves.  I had to go out several nights and chase them out from under there and manually move them.  Eventually they figured it out.  I find it odd that the mother hen didn't seem to care that they were outside and she was inside.  Chickens! 

Somehow they got up here.

They're pretty quick to get out of the coop in the morning.  They make a mad dash for the feeder before the big birds get there and push them out of the way.

Broody chicken update

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about one of our chickens going broody.  I got a dozen fertilized eggs from a neighbor and put them under her.  She did her job and dutifully sat on them.

On June 15 my wife went out to peek at her and noticed cracked egg shell.

I went out with her later and picked up the hen (who was not happy about that).  The birds had hatched.

When I checked on them the next morning I found 3 unfertilized eggs and some broken shells in the nesting box

 I guess she pushed them out of the nest.  Instead they were sitting in the corner on the floor.

When I got home from work that night the mother hen and 4 of the chicks were on the ground under the coop.  The rest of the chicks were still in the coop.  I had to reach into the coop and get them out. 

Aww...

 

 

They follow her around everywhere and she's been showing them how to be a chicken.  I've seen them out in the yard, but mostly the stay by the coop.  She gets real defensive and puffs up huge whenever anything approaches. 

I managed to get them into the chicken tractor tonight.  I propped up the front of it and they wondered in there.  Then I pulled out the prop.  I think they'll be better off in there.  Last night they slept under the coop and the night before that I had to help them in.  The chicks aren't big enough to get up the ramp and into the coop on their own. 

One of the chicks didn't make it.  It hatched and it's legs moved a little bit, but it never got up and ran around like the others.  On the second day it was cold and stiff.  As luck would have it...  The neighbor I got the fertilized eggs from had some in an incubator.  Two of them were further along than she thought and they hatched!  So she brought them over and we stuck them under this chicken.  It's hard to count them, but we think there are 11.  That math doesn't work out in my mind (9 hatched, 1 died, 2 from the neighbor should be 10).  I don't know.  Maybe there are 10.  Or maybe I stuck 13 eggs under her and 10 hatched.   Whatever, all I know is that there are a lot of them.  Maybe I'll even have enough that they won't all be eaten by hawks.