The Clueless Broody and the Emergency Rescue

THE STORY

We had been planning on adding to our existing flock this year and Spring is the perfect time to do it. The weather is warming up (well, maybe not so consistently where we are!) and it's the time that more chicks hatch naturally as mother hens go broody.

That's another reason for our timing - we had a broody hen, Blondie, for weeks now. She has hogged the nest and made herself appear scarily huge while she guards her non-existent chicks. So it seemed the right thing to do at the perfect time.

We wanted pure breed chickens again, I have talked before about our reasons for this and against short-lived crossbreeds, bred for intensive egg laying. Australorps and Rhode Island Reds are good layers and well suited to our climate, as well as making good pets, and generally lovely looking chookies :-)

We travelled down to Barters Hatchery who were extremely helpful and not only gave us the eggs we wanted, and gave us 15 for the price of 12, but also gave us ones that were in the process of hatching so we didn't have to wait the usual 21 days! The owner said he was worried that our broody would finish her stint before the 3 weeks was up as she had been sitting for so long already. So home we rushed with our Australorps and Rhode Island Red chicks, with 4 hatching out on the way home (!!!!) wrapped up in their boxes and towels for warmth, carefully guarded between our 2 kids in the back.

We got home and quickly prepared the area and calmly popped the eggs and new chicks under Blondie. She seemed happy so we left her to do her thing in peace and privacy.

BUT THEN....

It seems no-one had explained to Blondie what she was meant to do. Now most hens will naturally know how to hatch and raise chicks, they've been doing it on their own for thousands of years after all. But when we went back to check about half-hour later, she was off the nest, making a huge fuss and racket, and there were the eggs and chicks ...... left alone and very cold. In fact she had buried the 4 chicks under the wood shavings in the nest.

PLAN 'B'

Hubby quickly gathered up the eggs and I got the 4 chicks (3 of which were very cold and lifeless) got them inside in my jumper and then between my cupped hands to try to warm them, breathing on them and rubbing gently. We got the incubator out and set it up in record time (about 1 minute!) luckily we kept it from our last hatching although I didn't think we would need it with having a broody hen.... grrrr...

anyway, all we could do is pop them all in to warm up and cross our fingers.

The 4 first to hatch, with one Australorp just hatched in the incubator

THE RESULT.....

Incredibly, the 4 chicks that I had tried to save have all lived. They are now happily chirping away as I write. Of the remaining 11 eggs, one was half-hatched and unfortunately dead in the shell when we found it. The rest all hatched later that day or the following day, although a couple had difficulty with the shell membrane drying out as they had very prolonged hatches. I had to assist a couple with drops of water onto the membrane, and also peeling off tiny sections of shell as they had trouble breaking out. Probably because of this and the time they were left cold, we did have one chick born that was unable to walk. It was painful to see it throwing itself around blindly, knocking the other chicks over and generally suffering. We waited until day 3, but when it was clear it wasn't going to improve we had to put it down. It is an awful thing to do, but I suppose also part of responsible ownership.



From this ....

.....to this- in under an hour!!

First lot, out of the incubator and into the brooder box

We have also had a couple of chicks with suspect limps, but one improved over the first few days and is now walking perfectly and another I have splinted at the moment and is looking very good now. The splinting procedure for splay legs is explained HERE -- although our chick was not nearly as severe as that one, just standing with one leg too far out to the side rather than under its body.

Chick physio! Section of band-aid used as a spacer

So, all in all we have ended up with 13 chicks from 15 eggs, which, although it is sad we lost 2, is an incredibly good hatch. We have 7 Australorps and 6 Rhode Island Reds. Of course buying them at 'almost-hatch' helped (whilst giving them to a clueless broody did not) As for Blondie, well most annoyingly she went straight back to being broody and is still hogging the nest. It is difficult to be sympathetic now, after we gave her a chance and she blew it. Mind you, we do get to keep this lot inside now ----

Because our hen rejected the chicks they will not be properly cared for outside,  so we will continue to raise them inside for a while, until they are fully feathered and large enough to cope with outdoor weather and our other chooks.

We plan to keep some hens for ourselves, maybe 2 of each breed, perhaps a rooster too. Since we still have our existing 5 girls, I think any more would classify me as the local mad-chook-woman! The rest I am hoping to sell on to good homes once we find out who is who.....

Love my chickies  :-)

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheeps!

OK, get ready for the cutest fluffballs you've ever seen!

lunchtime in the brooder box

Finally yesterday (on day 22- 1 day late!) we hatched 7 out of our 8 chicky eggs. It was so exciting! The first one was out by the time we got up (at 6am :-o ) lying in the incubator ... I was worried for a second but when I shone a torch in it jumped up so quick and ran around chirping madly .... and then hardly stopped for the next 12 hours !!

pair of fluffballs

The next 6 we all had the amazing privilege of watching them hatch - it was really fantastic. After waiting all day Saturday with nothing happening (very frustrating!) at last we had our little chicks.
The 8th egg is still in the incubator, however its unlikely to hatch now, it was the only one that didn't 'pip' (start knocking a hole in the shell) and no chirpy noises from inside. I'll leave it until tomorrow.

After fluffing up and drying out, we moved them to their new residence- the Brooder Box. Ours is a very low-tech cardboard box, although it is prettied up with coloured paper around the outside. Newspaper and 50mm wood shavings in the bottom, then some non-slip matting on the top, (for the first couple of days while they find their feet, avoids leg problems later).

Heating is provided by a heat lamp very kindly loaned to me by the wonderful Jacqui from Life in the Dome blog, who lives nearby and helped me out immensely with some chicky things (I think I may have found a kindred chicky spirit LOL!) While I am giving out honourable mentions (!) Big thanks and a virtual bouquet to Chris from Bushlandproject blog for giving me lots of info and tips and whose emails calmed me down! You are wonderful women! I also got heaps of help and info from Backyard poultry - how amazing technology is that we can share so much information at the press of a few buttons!

Now, here is the ID parade! I don't know at this stage whether they are male or female, though I have my suspicions so I will share them here and you can come back later and see how right or wrong I am!!

So here is the line-up.... they are all Wyandottes, a mix of gold, silvers, blue-golds and blue silvers!

First to hatch- The Boss. Not sure if its a rooster (I suspect so!) or a future mother-hen but this is one lively chicky. After hatching ran around constantly helping the others out of their shells, pecking anyone who dared lie down for a rest (although this is apparently good to keep them moving after hatching) and once in the brooder box -even taking food to the other chicks who hadn't found it yet. Amazing behaviour!

Second out is this blue/grey beauty (I'm suspecting roo as well!) The fluffiest thing on legs. Actually its legs were a little weak for a while, but it is good now. Helped by The Boss to get to its feet.

Boss look-alike. Strange how similar they look as one came out of a Silver-Laced egg, the other out of Blue-Laced-Gold egg! It decided to sit nicely for its photo :)

This little one has the most stunning stripes and dots on her head - so pretty she just has to be a girl !!

This is my one Gold Laced Wyandotte, the photo doesn't show it but she is gorgeously reddish brown with stripes through her back. Another girl I think - look at that beautiful face!

This cutie having a bad hair day has a racing stripe down its back (boy racer with hair gel?)

And lastly, little Blondie - she is so cute! Very light with almost yellow underneath and wings.

We are all so in love with them, I'd love to keep them all! (not likely unless there is only 1 rooster) It has been an amazing project to incubate them and fantastic for the kids to watch.

So cuddly :)

Day 14- 8 out of 12 going well

I had meant to blog earlier about candling our eggs ... however as often happens life seems to have got in the way (and loss of it, poor Emily.) Thanks to all for the lovely comments BTW on my last post.

It's not as if we weren't candling, in fact I was so impatient there was no way I could wait a week so we had a look on day 4! and day 6 .... and day 8 ... and day 12.... and tonight -day 14 ! Apparently it doesn't harm the eggs, they don't spend long enough out of the incubator to lose heat so lots of people (impatient ones like me!) candle them often as the development is pretty amazing.

There is a lot of info on the internet about candling, so I won't go into it too much here, but basically it involves shining a light through the egg to see whats going on inside. It needs to be done in a fairly dark room, with a torch or lamp that can concentrate the light through the egg -not around it. We used a normal torch and it worked fine.

Unfortunately I haven't got any photos as they wouldn't work well, but even at day 4 we could see a dark mass inside (on non-fertile eggs there is just light). We could even see the eye which is one of the first things to develop. At day 4, it seemed there was maybe 10 out of the 12 developing, though some were more obvious than others. From day 6 onwards, there has been 8 developing out of the 12, which is a pretty good rate. Wyandottes are rose-combed which lowers the fertility rate (strange but true) so I wasn't expecting all of them to work, but hopefully these 8 will make it to the end.

Tonight (day 14) there is not much left to see. The chick has grown into most of the egg, so its very dark, with just a small space left to grow into, and the bigger end of the egg has an air sac which lights up really well.

As I mentioned in my original post I have mix of silver-laced (3 left), gold-laced (1 left) and blue-laced-golds (4 left).  BLG parents have chicks of BLG's, gold laced, and splash (which is gold/white with blue) so I'm very interested in what is going to come out!

There is still another week to go, fingers crossed that the remaining 8 will all make their way out of those shells, and that they will all be hens!

Wyandotte Eggs are in the 'Bator!

Well, now we've gone and done it !

12 little eggs heating up as I write! Here they are carefully arranged before the lid went on.....

The eggs are marked with the hen colour (keep reading for our choices!) and I have marked a 'o' and 'x' on each side for turning purposes.

I bought a Hexabator unit last weekend online after reading a lot of reviews and research done by lots of people more experienced than I am! It ticked all the boxes for our needs. I only wanted an entry-level unit as I'm not sure how often we will use it, and while there are others on the market that are huge or have extra features, the cost was way beyond what we were prepared to pay.

It can hold up to 60 hens eggs, has fan heating, clear top viewing window and digital thermometer. Its also made of plastic which is so much easier to clean after hatching than the other lower priced models made of polystyrene.
I bought it from Planet Poultry, with registered postage cost $230 all up. So far I am really happy with it, so easy to use, the temp is stable, very quiet - no worries.

Chris from Bushland Project had used hers succesfully before I bought mine - see her more detailed review here.

We drove down to Penrith today to meet a Wyandotte breeder named Mick, a great bloke who was very helpful. We even got to see his chicks at around 8 weeks old so we could see what they might look like as they get older. He breeds a huge range of Wyandottes including the popular Silver-laced and Gold-laced, as well as more unusual Blue Laced Golds, Blue laced Silvers, Buff laced, ... and more!

We ended up getting a pick'n'mix! We bought 4 x silver laced, 2 x gold laced and 6 xBlue laced golds- the offspring from BLG's produce a range of the ones mentioned above so we should have a colourful flock!

So now we just play the waiting game for 21 days until they hatch......

All I need to do meanwhile is turn the eggs twice daily, top up the water reservoir if needed (for humidity) and we can 'candle' the eggs in about a week to see if they are all fertile. I will do another post on candling later with the results - cross your fingers for us!

Spring means ..... chicky time!

I'm so excited! We are going to get some eggs for hatching! Woo hoo!

We have decided (well, ok, it was mostly me) that it would be a great idea to try hatching some chicks. We can add to our chooky flock, try a different breed and it should provide a bit of fun for us and the children too.

When we started off keeping chooks last year we played safe and bought some mixed point-of-lays (POL's) from a local produce store. That was fine, but now its time to step up a little!

I have always loved Wyandottes (well, since last year anyway!) they are such beautiful birds and their temperament makes them an ideal backyard pet and a good layer.
For the non-chooky readers out there (!) there are a lot of different colours and patterns, check out THIS LINK from Backyard Poultry for heaps of info and pics.

We will be buying a dozen eggs from a breeder who is fairly local, and although he does breed some amazing and rare colours I think I will go for Silver Laced and Gold Laced. (well, for now- ssshhh.... !!!) They are amazing looking chooks!
BTW- a dozen eggs doesn't mean we will get a dozen hens - some may not hatch and some that do will be roosters. (Don't ask what happens to roosters, we will cross that bridge later......)

We also need to buy an incubator to hatch them.
*Unless any of you local chooky gals have an incubator gathering dust you could loan out?*
The alternative is to use a broody chook (none of ours broody at the moment) but also we don't have the space to keep a broody and eggs separate before they hatch and while they are small. Besides, the idea of keeping them inside and watching them hatch is half the fun!

I am blaming Chris at Bushland Project for this latest interest! Click on the link to check out those cutie chicks and her progress of hatching them. How could I resist  :-) And many thanks to her for doing loads of research on incubators!

Hopefully we will have our incubator next week and wyandotte eggs soon after- and of course I will keep you up to date with progress ......

:-)