Remember how I said we had one chickie hatch?
Well, now we have SIX.
My life is now ruled by little balls of fluff that CHIRP CHIRP at me all day long and think I'm their mama, but I have to admit, they're absolutely gorgeous.
My main problem is trying to explain to my four year old daughter that chickies are not really ideal pets to play with in her dolls house!
Last time I turned the eggs, which was this evening, another one had started to wobble and chirp at me, and I suspect that we may have another fluffy customer arrive for food and lodgings in time for breakfast tomorrow.
They never pay either, these freeloaders!
I've been keeping records of our chicks as they've arrived, and attempted to sex them by looking at the feathers on their wingtips. If I'm right, so far we have M, F, F, F, F and M. It will be interesting to find out!
If you're interested in sexing chickens using the wingtip method, here's quite a good Youtube:
There are a lot more eggs still to hatch, so I'm hoping we get a great number of chooks.
Half are likely to be male, but in the end, we just need about 6-8 females to replace our current flock, and the rest of the hens can be given to friends or sold.
Yep - "chickenmania" is about right!
Have a lovely day!
7 comments:
Oh, how wonderful....they are so cute, but I have a question for you where did you get your Barnevelders I can not find them anywhere? I do love your blog thank you.
They're so cute when they're little. I remember when we had the year of raising 2 sets of chicks. Sadly, we had lots of roosters...
http://dancingwithfrogs.com
Hi Blackberry Brambles - We got ours from a local breeder here in Dunedin, NZ.
Your blog says you're in the US - is that right? If so, go visit the Backyard Chickens forum and ask there about regional suppliers of chooks or fertile eggs for Barnevelders. You should be able to find someone who will post you fertile eggs, and you can hatch your own from there. I'd order a dozen, on the assumption that 2/3rds may hatch (giving you about 8) and four of those will be female, assuming you'll want about four for your family flock.
Hope this is useful.
HI Frogdancer - I know - my four year old daughter is thoroughly enjoying them, watching them grow so fast!
If we have a lor of roos, it won't really matter, as we'll just use them for meat. And we have plenty of friends who want them! But the higher the % of females, the better of course.
There's a seventh chick hatching right now (our first purebred Barnie!), so we'll probably have another by lunchtime, and an eigth egg is looking suspicious.
Thank you for this really exciting post! And I can totally understand why your daughter wants to invite the chicks into her dollhouse! They are the perfect size! LOL - Too cute!
Have a great day!
RaShell
Hi, I've just discovered your blog and am enjoying having a look around.
Note that the feather sexing technique only works on a few specific breeds or crosses. Researchers found sex-linked genes related to feather growth rate, and developed some breeds where the males feather out slower than the females.
I usually can't tell our chicks apart until they're about 10 weeks old. It doesn't matter, though - we eat the ones that crow, and keep/sell the rest!
Hi Darren - yeah, I've heard that the feather / wingtip sexing method isn't reliable on mutts.
But thought I'd give it a go anyway, and I've noted down what I think they are - it will be interesting (and useful) to see how accurate I am.
As you say, that's the advantage of keeping dual purpose birds - the boys can go to "a different home", and all birds have a use.
We're now up to 8 chicks out, and two hatching as I sit here typing, with another 20 or so eggs still not due yet (our pure breeds were bought a week later after our own eggs were collected and started incubating). I'll be real interested to see our success rate from the different breeders - so far, we've done real well with our own!
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