Quailberries
Songster
Ok, where to start...
My family recently decided to get backyard chickens, and got out first flock of four pullets on March 30th. It has been not even 2 weeks and we are now down to two... kind of.
Our EE chick was quickly found to have a really horrible cross beak, and thanks to the help of a few of you we decided that culling her would be best for her, as the deformity was so severe that we would be able to do very little about it. We did not want her to suffer.
Today, we ran into a problem with our “mystery chick”. She was given to us as a Light Brahma Pullet, but after the third day we realized she was much more likely to be a Leghorn, and while it was an annoyance we stuck with that and weren’t too concerned with care.
She grew rapidly and was twice, if not three times the size of the other chicks. We passed this off as just an unnatural growth spurt at first, but now we have no choice but to reindentify her as a Cornish Cross Broiler- and maybe possibly a rooster.
We haven’t culled her yet. In fact, we’re probably going to give her to a local broiler farm if the option is available to us, but we certainly won’t be keeping her. We are not permitted to raise chickens for meat and have no reason to keep her in our flock due to their lack of worth as egg layers.
All we have left is a SLW and a RIR- and they seem to be doing fantastic. That being said, it has been very discouraging for our family to lose chicks for reasons not in our control. We’re planning to get two new chicks asap, as we’ve heard that they tend not to do well in groups of 2-3. Different hatchery and feed store, obviously.
I guess my question is... are we having bad luck or is this just normal? With half of our original flock not being able to make it, we’re feeling really discouraged. The chicks we still have are sacred to us, though, and we’re going to put 110% effort into raising the new babies right along with them. Any tips for integrating? We were planing on just separating the brooder out via hardware cloth for the first week or so until the newborns were strong enough to not we trampled by the 2-weekers, but if someone has another idea/tips were completely open to hear it. Thanks.
My family recently decided to get backyard chickens, and got out first flock of four pullets on March 30th. It has been not even 2 weeks and we are now down to two... kind of.
Our EE chick was quickly found to have a really horrible cross beak, and thanks to the help of a few of you we decided that culling her would be best for her, as the deformity was so severe that we would be able to do very little about it. We did not want her to suffer.
Today, we ran into a problem with our “mystery chick”. She was given to us as a Light Brahma Pullet, but after the third day we realized she was much more likely to be a Leghorn, and while it was an annoyance we stuck with that and weren’t too concerned with care.
She grew rapidly and was twice, if not three times the size of the other chicks. We passed this off as just an unnatural growth spurt at first, but now we have no choice but to reindentify her as a Cornish Cross Broiler- and maybe possibly a rooster.
We haven’t culled her yet. In fact, we’re probably going to give her to a local broiler farm if the option is available to us, but we certainly won’t be keeping her. We are not permitted to raise chickens for meat and have no reason to keep her in our flock due to their lack of worth as egg layers.
All we have left is a SLW and a RIR- and they seem to be doing fantastic. That being said, it has been very discouraging for our family to lose chicks for reasons not in our control. We’re planning to get two new chicks asap, as we’ve heard that they tend not to do well in groups of 2-3. Different hatchery and feed store, obviously.
I guess my question is... are we having bad luck or is this just normal? With half of our original flock not being able to make it, we’re feeling really discouraged. The chicks we still have are sacred to us, though, and we’re going to put 110% effort into raising the new babies right along with them. Any tips for integrating? We were planing on just separating the brooder out via hardware cloth for the first week or so until the newborns were strong enough to not we trampled by the 2-weekers, but if someone has another idea/tips were completely open to hear it. Thanks.
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