All 4 of Welly’s eggs hatched! One had some issues and we spent a couple days nursing it back to health.
Poor thing was so weak. It couldn’t even hold it’s head up.
Doing better after warming and feeding it an electrolyte solution.
12 hours after hatching it was apparent it was going to survive but it was not as vigorous as it’s siblings, so we kept it inside for another couple of days.
We named that one Nugget. After a day or so, we brought one of its siblings in to teach it to eat and drink from the waterer. Since we had been hand feeding it the electrolyte solution, it wasn’t catching on by itself. After another day or two, you couldn’t tell Nugget from the other except that we put a leg band on it, so we but them all back in with Welly.
So now we had 9 chicks. Three of them we knew were males. Time would tell for the others.
At just 4 weeks old, the Sex-link’s combs were substantially bigger than the Speckled Sussex’s. Hoped that meant the Sussex were female – it did!
And at 6 weeks old, it was VERY obvious that two of Welly’s chicks were male, and two were female. These are the two males.
Oh, and you know little Nugget that we put so much time and effort into reviving? Yep, one of the males!
So, we ended up with 5 males and 4 females. Figures!
And one of the white females got out of her pen when a neighboring dog happened to be visiting and got herself killed. 😢
So, now we have 5 males that are bound for the stew pot this fall, and 3 females that will be added to the flock.
Right now we are working on integrating the two chick flocks to each other. The mammas are back in with their original flock. We are not going to bother integrating all those boys to one of the main flocks when they will be gone in a couple months anyway. But in the meantime, we need them all to be in the same coop/run. And soon it will be time to introduce the three pullets into their new flock.
Ah, the joys of raising chickens!
Castle Rock Homestead 