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Wednesday 12 May 2010
Flying the nest
As the chicks hatched by the Speckled Sussex are 5 weeks old this weekend and are well feathered we plan to take the hen away and put the chicks in with the incubator chicks of a similar age. It seems the mother hen is of the same mind. For the past couple of days she has been pacing up and down her pen eager to join the rest of the flock. Where before she screeched if any of the hens came too close to her chicks, yesterday she was quite calm when a couple of them sneaked into her pen whilst I was feeding her. Her comb has also become quite red again, a sign that she is close to coming back into lay.
The chick of hers whose foot was injured last week is absolutely fine. For a day or two she was obviously in a little pain if she tried to use it but she was soon running and scratching around with rest.
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Just visiting your chick blog...great pictures. We have 16 layers and 2 roosters. We have incubated chicks with success, but now we are trying the natural way. We have a Black Australorp sitting on 11 eggs and the chicks are due 5/19. We plan to move her to her own mini-coop to raise them away from the other hens. Did you move your chicks together with the incubator chicks because they will have a higher chance for survival?
ReplyDeleteThanks in advance for the info.
Marianne
Hi, Marianne..thank you.
ReplyDeleteWe mixed the chicks purely for practical reasons...ie needing just the one house, one area etc. so far so good, the mix has gone well.
Not long to wait for your hatch, fingers crossed :) I have a hatch due on the 18th.and set a dozen eggs under an Australorp last night.
Your plan for the hen and her brood sounds very similar to how I do it.It seems to work well.