Yesterday was moving day for the first set of five hatched out chickie babies between three mama hens. They moved out of the brooder box permanently to their new home. We still have two hatched out by Little Blackie, Australorpe, in the brooder box. Now they have the entire brooder box to themselves. Her third chick piped the shell until it was almost free, and then died.
But this post isn't about Little Blackie's babies (just 2 weeks old), it's the first hatched fivers. Why fivers they were five that survived and they were five weeks old when we first put them outside during the day to socialize with the older birds. Don't worry, the babies are in two dog crates. At eight weeks old, they were more than ready to move out of their 2/3rds of a brooder box. They complained loudly when put in their brooder at night after the first three days.
The bigger, and much older chickens looked at them with curiosity. Meanwhile, the chicks looked out through the bars, "Are you my Mother?" Even the mother hens did not lay claim to them and went about their business of clearing the weeds out of the new chicken run. They take their housekeeping duties very seriously even though it's open for them to free range again. The best part is I'm now able to find their eggs again.
The chick spend their days napping in the sunlight, scratching for wayward bugs and seeds, and dust bathing all in the comfort of their protected environment. The chicken tractor is now finished. It has all the bells and whistles like a small 5-gallon rain catchment system for water and an automatic feeder that holds 10 lbs of chick starter feed per fill up. I simply reconnect the water tube to the bucket and carry it separately when I move it..
I still don't know which are hens and rooster, but I'm watching their wing and tail feathers. But unfortunately/fortunately, I'm beginning to think I have 3 roos (they have saddle feathers) and only 1 hen of the older chickie babies. Unfortunate because I wanted the opposite. Fortunate because it means more meat in the freezer for us. I noticed two of them flying at each other so I'm thinking these two are roosters, but I could be wrong because hens do this too. I'll know for sure if they start crowing by sixteen weeks old. Then it's butchering day and freezer camp for all but one lucky one. I'm still hoping for four hens and one rooster for homestead production needs. I could still get that because I believe the two in the brooder box are hens.
I was looking into the cross breeding genetics. With a RIR as a sire he could contribute not only coloring, but in egg production and size by as much as half. This surprised me. If a Easter egger lays on average 240 medium eggs the cross with Rhode Island Red, the offspring could lay up to 300 eggs per year or more with a possible egg size jump to a large. I know two of the chicks are EE/RIR cross. One is definitely RIR/Australorpe cross. Both hens lay, on average, 309.5 large eggs per year. Would that mean a possibility of 365 large to extra large eggs from this hen?
I can see tons of angel food cakes and lemon egg yolk cookies in our future. There won't be an event, meeting, or get-together that I'm not giving them away at by the dozens. Every pot luck I go to I'll have to bring an egg heavy casserole. And, that's only with four laying, household hens. Just the two of us don't eat that many eggs.😎It's not counting my chickens before they hatch. They've already hatched! I may be left with two or three hens out of the hatchlings which would put us about break even in eggs laid/eggs needed.
Of each of the five, I can tell who the mommas were that laid the egg that they hatched from within one or two choices. When we got the chicks we had two of each kind of certain breeds like Bared Plymouth Rocks and Dominiques, and the others were later identified by their coloring. plus one mystery chick that died in the original fifteen we ordered. One of the black chicks is definitely a black Australorpe cross, one black chick with a brown chest is the Blue Birchen Maran's egg who we lost last week to a stray dog. One was from a Steele Egger cross because I call their mama Polka Dot. And, the last chick came from one of the Dominiques.
The Dominique cross managed to get out of the outdoor cage last week. Not quite sure how she managed that feat. Two days passed and I figured it was gone for sure. It was the biggest of the bunch. While I was doing the final fiddling with the chicken tractor, I see this little head pop out from under the food stores building. I was hope against hope tossing out chick starter crumbles along one edge of the building in case it was still alive since it went missing. After all, didn't Hoo-de-hoo, aka Houdini, our two-week old Buff Orpington rooster, survive for two weeks in the open with the odds against him surviving. We just have too many predators around that would love to eat a tender morsel little chicks provide: dogs, cats, hawks, owls, snakes, the adult chickens, and even rats. So when I saw it, I was relieved. I got some extra chick starter and put little piles along the food stores building and a small container of water. Since it wouldn't let me catch it, it had to stay where it was. Meanwhile, I'm hooked the butterfly net on my pants pocket while I'm out and about...just in case.
I made an A-frame design chicken tractor. Except for placing the laying boxes in it, the chicken tractor is done finally! I had thought to use chicken wire but decided to to use the heavier cage wire and 1" hardware cloth for the exposed areas. It has a roosting bar in the little coop. The coop has no floor save the coated, wire shelves inside. This way the chickie babies' poop can drop to the ground. So there will be no straw nor hay to clean out until they start laying eggs. When one area gets too thick in droppings or the grass is almost gone, I'll simply move it to a new area. I figure I'll be moving it every couple of days.
I saw on YouTube where somebody used 5-gallon buckets for nesting boxes. I decided to do the same, but flipped it. The opening end with the lid faces the outside of the tractor so I can get the eggs. All I have to do is snap off the lid. It's not one of those rubberized thick lids. I built the supports inside under the coop area. So when they start laying in a few months, I'll just snip the cage wire for the buckets to slide in. It's pretty ingenious if I do say so myself. I even put small drain holes in the bottom of the nest boxes for ventilation and to drain any moisture that gets in there. With the whole back snapping off, removing and replacing the straw will be a breeze unlike conventional nest boxes.
Well, enough rambling. It's moving day for the chickie babies. Time for me to get off my hinny and get busy!
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