There are new chicks, hatched early this evening, under both Dahlia and Oregano. Both are babies from Black Copper Marans eggs. Now each hen has three live babies, for a total of six on the ground. Oregano had one baby that pipped this evening, but it died before making it out of the shell. When I investigated, its yolk hadn’t yet been absorbed. I am starting to think the hot temperatures have affected this hatch, but that’s just a hunch and not substantiated yet with any research.
The chicks that were born last night are very active, hanging out at the front of the next box, pecking at shavings, and interacting with each other. Here are the yellow Coronation Sussex and the barred olive egger/wheaten Ameraucana boy.
They must be starting to think about food. Perhaps tomorrow they will take their first excursion out of the nest box. I am sure both mothers are also ready to get out of the nest. Notice how pale and dehydrated their combs and wattles are. Incubating eggs takes a lot out of a hen as they barely eat and drink just enough to keep from dying. They’ve both lost a bunch of weight—when I feel their chests all their breast muscle mass has shrunk away on either side of the keel bone.
I find it interesting that when the guinea keets hatched last summer, they were way more active, way sooner than the chickens. The guinea keets were still wet from hatching and they’d already begun running out of the nest box. The chicks seem to be rather limp until they fluff up and find their legs. This little one under Dahlia has favored this front corner of the box all day. The chick has a few copper colored feathers, the same tone as mama’s, around its head and sides.
I suspect we might be done with this hatch. There aren’t any more pipped eggs, and nobody cheeped when I tapped on their shell. But we’ll see what the morning brings. I am ready to be done with this hatch phase, with its attendant death and stinky ooze, and on to seeing darling little fluff balls running all around the coop learning to be big chickens.
There’s nothing like sweet baby chicks! I remember when we brought home our first set of chicks and housed them in a new horse trough in the entry hall! I also remember the one tiny little rooster, jumping up on top of the water feeder and squawking away at me. Those genes are just in them!
I’ve always put food and water directly in front of my brooding birds (be it chickens, ducks or geese), to make it really easy for them to get sustenance without having to get up from their nest.
Not sure if that’s how it should be done, but I’m a worry-wort and don’t like to see my gals withering away on their nests.
That’s a good idea, Chaucea. When my hen Iris raised her guineas last summer, I fed her scratch feed every day out of my hand. But this time around I figured I would leave it up to mother nature.
I know! Chicks are the best, Dianne! When I brought these two broody hens, along with some of my other birds, home last summer they lived in the guest bath tub for a long time. That’s one of the reason I prefer letting a broody hen do the work—in my garage and not in my house. Chicks are so messy!