They're so smart and cute!! Great job.
Shy for sure. Probably not the most intelligent of the bunch either.
She's the one most often wandering by herself, without the chick posse. The others will take food out of my hand but I pretty much have to throw it at her if I want her to get a treat.
Shy for sure. Probably not the most intelligent of the bunch either.
I did nab her this afternoon and gently mashed her face into the nipple a few times to help her figure out how it worked, then after I released her she backed away a couple inches and made displeased sounds at me. I apologized and stroked her chest for a couple of seconds. Probably the first time she didn't immediately flee after contact with me.
Throw it at her, lol! Maybe the face mashing will help you win her over! So far nothing works with Mochalita for me even though she'll let my husband help her off the roost bar in the morning because she's always the last one out. She does seem to be last in line for brains.... Very pretty though!
For our last 4 chicks that we got in April 2020, we did something similar. We live in SW Missouri where spring can be unsettled but where it can get quite warm. As they outgrew their indoor brooder my husband decided to build a portable coop-run to use for the chicks as they grew and then in our back chicken yard for all the chickens to use as their outdoor hangout (they free range on about 11/2 acres). He would wheel it outside from our garage during the day so the little girls could roam around in a safe grassy place. He could move it around the yard each day and then wheel it back into the garage at night. We still use it and the chickens (and sometimes the wild rabbits) go in to grab a snack or roost on the bars when it’s windy, cold or rainy. we put plastic around it during months and remove it in the warm weather. See photoIt's been nearly 4 years since we've added new chicks to our flock of hens. Rather than tack onto my existing brooder set up and early integration article, I decided to do a brood along / integrate along thread for 2024, so I can touch on chick development and integration as it happens, and maybe folks who are brooding or integrating for the first time will find it helpful to have someone going through the same process with them.
Specific set up info in my article linked above. As I brood outdoors in the run with a mama heating pad, I will include temperatures as I know a common concern is that chicks are too cold or too young to deal with being outside, or around older birds. I won't be updating daily but just adding on as things happen. My goal is to have the chicks fully off heat and integrated into the coop in a month's time - let's see if that happens!
3/29 Welcome home! Chicks are 2-3 days and 9-10 days old. 57F daytime and dry.
We picked up 4 pullet chicks from the feed store: a newly arrived Silver-Laced Wynadotte, Barnevelder, Blue (Copper?) Marans, and a Crevecoeur that's one week older than the rest. Once we got home I dipped everyone's beaks in water, then pushed them under the heating pad (they immediately popped back out). It took them a little bit to figure out that the heating pad was "mama" and then it went from shrill screaming to blissful silence for most of the afternoon. As the Crevecoeur was a bit lethargic and pasted up when I checked on them later, I picked the poop off her rear and gave her 1-2 drops of Poultry Nutri-Drench directly in the mouth.
3/30 First full day home. Temperature and weather same as day before.
Admittedly I find the first night to be miserable and sleepless, as I constantly worry it's too cold or that the heating pad malfunctioned. This is our 4th batch of chicks and it's always the same old worries! But everyone survived the night under the mama heating pad, with ambient temps around 40F or so.
The Crevecoeur was much more bouncy and energetic. Since I hadn't witnessed the chicks eating or drinking for any significant length of time (they spent most of the previous afternoon sleeping), I once again dipped their beaks in water, and tapped at the feeder to simulate a hen encouraging chicks to eat. They took to both eating and drinking after that, and even enjoyed spending some time in the sunshine in the back of the brooder.
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