Pipd's Peeps!

[NagemTX]

So the last rosecomb hatched Sunday night. The others, five rosecomb and one Dusty was left. Two of the five rosecomb quit I would guess at draw down and the other three after the internal pip. The Dusty egg quit before or during draw down.

Also lost a silkie chick. I think Dr Girl friend may have injured it internally. When it went clear liquid came up. So she is in another box till I can get her and her chicks outside. Was going to move the one unfinished pen in to the main one and put her in there. It wouldn't fit through the door.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Wow pipdzipdnreadytogo, you sure have a lot going on! I hope things work out.

Haha, yeah, the chickens like to make sure I have plenty to do in a day, it seems

So the last rosecomb hatched Sunday night. The others, five rosecomb and one Dusty was left. Two of the five rosecomb quit I would guess at draw down and the other three after the internal pip. The Dusty egg quit before or during draw down.

Yay on the little ones that made it! Sorry to hear about the quitters, but it sounds like you got quite a few babies in total from that hatch anyway.

Also lost a silkie chick. I think Dr Girl friend may have injured it internally. When it went clear liquid came up. So she is in another box till I can get her and her chicks outside. Was going to move the one unfinished pen in to the main one and put her in there. It wouldn't fit through the door.

Wow, I wouldn't have expected her to attack other chicks! Darn about the pen not fitting!!

 

[NagemTX]

Haha, yeah, the chickens like to make sure I have plenty to do in a day, it seems




Yay on the little ones that made it! Sorry to hear about the quitters, but it sounds like you got quite a few babies in total from that hatch anyway.




Wow, I wouldn't have expected her to attack other chicks! Darn about the pen not fitting!!

Yeah. She would get close to the hardware cloth divider and kind act like she wanted to mother them but I found her on the other side slinging one around.

I have two more troughs coming and she is in the old brooder I built for now and unable to leave it as I put the wire top on it.

 

[NagemTX]

She is a sebright and the more research I do the more I find out they are very game bird like.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Yeah. She would get close to the hardware cloth divider and kind act like she wanted to mother them but I found her on the other side slinging one around.

I have two more troughs coming and she is in the old brooder I built for now and unable to leave it as I put the wire top on it.

Oh my goodness! Bad mama!!

She is a sebright and the more research I do the more I find out they are very game bird like.

I think I've heard that as well, that they have some kind of game in their background or something Don't quote me on that!

The Sebright hens I had were feisty little bitties for sure! Some even crowed regularly





As far as what's up in my neck of the woods, Roxy's prolapse was not protruding as far as it had been last night, but she still seems to struggle to pass droppings because of it. I'm not honestly sure what, if anything, I can do about that.

This morning, when I went out to the coops, I found a mess to clean up in the chicken yard. I guess the egg eater was hungry without any eggs to get to, because it (or something, maybe not the same critter) dug up the ground all over, moved some boards and stepping stones, and even tore down the plastic sheeting from the rooster pens. Thankfully, that's only there to protect the boys from cold weather and we've been pretty warm lately, so no big deal there. I was planning to replace that this winter anyway because it's old and getting brittle. But still


Oh, and I woke up to peeping in the incubator!! One air breather so far!

 

[NagemTX]

Oh my goodness! Bad mama!!




I think I've heard that as well, that they have some kind of game in their background or something Don't quote me on that!

The Sebright hens I had were feisty little bitties for sure! Some even crowed regularly





As far as what's up in my neck of the woods, Roxy's prolapse was not protruding as far as it had been last night, but she still seems to struggle to pass droppings because of it. I'm not honestly sure what, if anything, I can do about that.

This morning, when I went out to the coops, I found a mess to clean up in the chicken yard. I guess the egg eater was hungry without any eggs to get to, because it (or something, maybe not the same critter) dug up the ground all over, moved some boards and stepping stones, and even tore down the plastic sheeting from the rooster pens. Thankfully, that's only there to protect the boys from cold weather and we've been pretty warm lately, so no big deal there. I was planning to replace that this winter anyway because it's old and getting brittle. But still


Oh, and I woke up to peeping in the incubator!! One air breather so far!

View attachment 3835976

Woo hoo pips! And bad varmits!

I stayed up to late and ket thinking I was hearing chicks in the hatcher that I have off right now for cleaning .

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Oh goodness, I do that to myself a lot! Without the incubators running, it's quiet enough in my room to hear birds and squirrels chirping outside. I always have to sit there and listen like, holy-moly, how are there chicks peeping right now??

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

We have 7 peeps out and the last egg is externally pipped as of this morning! Looking like mostly Blues with only a couple Blacks in the mix. Most of them hatched yesterday evening to late last night.

This is the first four to hatch. Lighting's terrible because I moved them to the brooder late last night and I had the light out because the older peeps were not pleased about their move to the bigger brooder and wouldn't settle down unless it was dark in there.

These three hatched later last night, so they moved to the brooder this morning

Just waiting on number 8 to make an appearance. She's the only one that is actually on the proper schedule for when I set these eggs!!


In other, rather unfortunate news, it looks like the egg thief has not been stopped yet after all. I got 0 eggs from Buck's pen again last night. I'm honestly not sure what to do about it. Whatever it is is striking in the day, some time between early afternoon when I go out to let the mixed flock free-range and the evening when I close up coops for the night, and it must be able to fit through the welded wire fence of their pen without deforming it in any way because there's literally no other entry point. It's taking the whole egg and leaving no evidence behind, but I don't think it's a snake because there were eggshells being left behind when it first started happening. So it has to be either a raccoon or a rat, I can't think of anything else it could be. I'm afraid to gather the eggs ahead of time in case it decides it's too hungry to go without and takes a bird instead. All I can think of to do is leave the birds locked inside their coop and put a live trap in the pen to try to catch it. It's just so frustrating!

 

[2ndTink]

The chicks are just perfect!

Do you have a game cam you can set up in the coop? That may be your best bet and very well worth it.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I don't, unfortunately, and I'm not sure I have the means of getting one at the moment because I'm on a very limited budget. I may need to pinch some pennies and save up for one, though, as I thought of that as well. That would probably be my best bet of figuring out what it is and getting a plan worked out to combat it.