Chicken Learning Experience #1,387

Warning: There are some Graphic Images below of my pecked chickens.

 So, the last couple of weeks has been an interesting learning experience in chicken keeping. I had my first heartbreak and it was completely my fault.

Of the chicks I inherited, I have four that are white. I mentioned before that I believed that they were leghorns, one female and three males (I now believe I white plymouth rocks, but that's another post). The males were getting mighty big and I'd had the chicks outside with my full grown orpingtons a few times and everyone seemed fine, so I made the huge mistake of putting the rocks in with the orpingtons in the run for a few hours and not watching them like I clearly should have been.

When I went back out the pecking had been brutal. All three of the rocks had been hit hard and the orpingtons were quickly shooed away. Two of them were hit on the back and wings and were walking about eating and drinking like normal, but the third one was seriously injured and did not survive.

So needless to say, I wrapped the two in towels and brought them into the house to be cared for and heal. I got some wound spray to help with the healing, added electrolites to their water and started giving them medicated feed. I am unsure which worked well or if they really needed any of these, but they are doing just fine now and back in the run - properly and with protection from the orpingtons. 

This shows a portion of the current set up keeping the injured rocks from everyone, the remaining other chicks are in the setup under the coop, locked away and one of my orpingtons is in the walkway area, wondering why she can't get to them.

This is what they looked like when I found them and got them inside. Seeing the blood was shocking for me, but they continued chowing down like normal and were drinking as well.

Their feathers are growing in nicely. Their behavior has not changed a bit. Excellent.

So, the point to my story is that this was quite a learning experience for me.

1. Apparently, even though I am not a vegetarian and I had considered harvesting these very chicks when they were older, I was devastated that they were picked on so badly and that one was picked to death. It bothered me tremendously knowing they were put in an environment where they were badly treated and I put them there.

2. Chickens are tough and despite looking quite plucked and smelling terrible with the injuries, they have healed quickly and nicely. They also didn't even slow down with eating and drinking.

3. 8 month old orpingtons can be jerks, but I love them. Even though I was irrationally mad at them for the evening, I am completely over it. The monsters.

4. Follow steps for introducing to your flock! This is so important! All of the chicks are in the run now, but kept from each other while they adjust to each others' presence. When the chicks get big enough, I'll start letting everyone take a closer look at each other - but with supervision.

5. I kept them in the house at first, while treating them, and that was fine for a small period of time. But as they are rocks, they are getting very large, fast, and I really wanted to get them out of the brooder, which would mean them being outside or wandering my home. So I looked into hen saddles and chicken diapers. After some sewing and trial and error, I have come to the conclusion that in this situation, they are not necessary. They have done just fine with the temperature outside and it did get down to 30 one night. The run is winterized and it's all good.

6. And as for chicken diapers - no. Just no.

Do You Have Cockerels or Pullets?

I inherited several chicks from a coworker of mine and have spent the last three weeks learning about the different ways us chicken folks recognize what gender our chicks are as soon as possible. There are the old wives tales, they're very entertaining, as well as the vent sexing done by those who know more than I do. How do the rest of us, those who have just a few chickens on our urban farms, tell? Especially when you're like me and you aren't allowed to have roosters in the middle of a city?

I have learned a few things that have made all the difference, the biggest being - it depends on the breed.

I currently have four breeds of chicks; Rhode Island Reds, Australorps, Barred Plymouth Rocks, and Leghorns. The easiest, by far, are the Barred Plymouth Rocks. Not only do they have a specific kind of dot on their heads, but they have several things that are different in the genders. I've separated mine out by male and female and I'm very curious to see if I turn out to be correct. Here's my evidence:

1. Barred Plymouth Rocks: I have three, one male and two female. My evidence is based on feather color, beak color, leg size and color, and feather growth.

The chicks on the far right and far left are female Barred Plymouth Rocks. This is evident in the black on their beaks, tail feather growth and darker feathering than the male chick. Their legs are also thinner than the roo.

This is my male Barred Plymouth Rock. He is a little more energetic and squawky than the ladies. He also has thicker legs, lighter feathering and his tail feathers took longer to start coming in than the ladies. His beak and legs are also yellow, without any black on them.

I based my decision on this post in Backyard Chickens, that is so helpful. http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/798635/sight-sexing-barred-plymouth-rock-chicks-at-hatch The author obviously has a lot of experience with Barred Plymouth Rocks.

2. Leghorns: I have four total (UPDATE: I have 1 White Rock and 3 Leghorns here, I believe all female. I was totally wrong); one female and three males. Because Leghorns grow very fast, it's more challenging to tell them apart. Today I took them outside for the first time and let them run about and it was most obvious who was what. Three of them have significantly less feathering and combs that seem slightly more pronounced. The comb difference is very slight at this point and definitely not enough on its own. Today it was very apparent that the ones I thought were male have thicker legs than the female. We'll see if I'm right in a few weeks, I'm sure!

This is one of the males. Note the lack of large tail feathers and the very thick legs.

These are the three males huddled together. Notes the lack of feathering and large amount of fuzziness still on these guys.

This is my female Leghorn. Note the heavier feathering and longer tail feathers than the males. She's staring down one of my cats right now. Haha

I based this on a lot of factors I read on Leghorns on the internet, but one of my favorite sources was a drawing at this link:http://hanburyhouse.com/how-to-distinguish-male-chicks-from-female-chicks-in-1-week-old-cochins/  from Hanbury House. She does an excellent job of explaining basic differences in male and female growth.

4. Rhode Island Reds and Australorps: I'm feeling challenged by these still. I believe I have one of each of the Australorps. The feathering is the same, but leg thickness is definitely different. I don't really have a good picture of these to show you.

I also believe my Rhode Island Reds are likely all hens. I have one of those that challenges me a little. One of the chicks is much smaller than the others. Not enough to be a bantam, I believe, but enough to have some sort of growth issue. We call her Turtle and she is the sweetest thing. Her feathers are definitely not developing like the other RIRs, but this could easily be some sort of issue. I don't think this is a sign of gender for her. She is energetic and jumps about and eats like the others, but is definitely more passive and likes to be held and hang out with me. Here are a few pictures I took today. We'll see soon if I'm correct on these as well. :-)

Three week old Australorp. I'm not sure which this is, the male or female.

One of the Australorp hanging out with Turtle.

Turtle hanging out on my lap. She's a sweetie. I'm very curious to see if she's truly a hen.

These are the other two Rhode Island Reds. They are significantly more feathered than Turtle and their feathers are darker as well. This leans towards Turtle being male. At the same time, she's not growing or developing like the others.

Basically, it's guesswork, but it does seem consistent. I feel like I should address the other methods folks use, the old wives tales.

1. Holding the chick on their back - hens calm down and lay still and roos are all wiggly and don't cooperate. With these, I found the ones I believe are male never calmed down for me and of the females, some would at times and some didn't at all. It's just not reliable. I think it just depends on whether they've had their naps that day. :-)

2. Holding them up by the next to see if they draw up their legs or not.I tried this with a few and was very careful. I didn't feel it was a great idea and it definitely was not consistent.

3. I didn't try the dangling anything over a head and I didn't hang anyone upside down either. These just seemed silly, so I skipped them.

So, we'll see. This is my first experience with sexing chicks and it's kind of fun. I wish I had fewer roosters, but I'm sure I'll be able to find them a good home.

Guessing Chicken Breeds - Part II

Here we have the same chicks at 2 weeks old. I tried to take pictures of as many of the 12 as would stay still. That is a challenge. :-)

2 week old Rhode Island Red chicks. Turtle is in back. :-)

2 week old Rhode Island Red - female

2 week old Rhode Island Red - female

2 week old Australorp - unsure of gender still

Lovely feathering on 2 week old Rhode Island Red

2 week old Leghorn chick. Possibly female

2 week old Barred Rock - male

Guessing Chick Breeds - Part I

This is Turtle, laying back and checking me out.

Good afternoon my chicken friends!

This new endeavor is to fill in the cracks of information that seem lacking for the small urban farmer/chicken owner. The internet is an amazing resource, however, I've found that with the recent burst of growth in city chicken farmers, there is a lot of information that is scattered around and some that is lacking. So this is my goal. I am starting to garden more, raise chickens, compost and I have some other fun pets. I plan to keep track and provide information right here, for anyone interested.

So, with that said, my first post will be about these amazing new baby chicks I inherited and I'm currently trying to figure out their breed and genders. I work in a college of agriculture and with someone who teaches a poultry class. Part of this class is learning about chick production and hatching eggs. However, as a result of learning this topic, there are chicks that hatch and need homes. This semester, I was the lucky person to get them and I set them up in a brooder at home.

BTW, I have a husband with the patience of a saint. Bless him.

There was no clue to breed or gender and I'm fairly novice on such things, so google it was. I made the immediate assumption that there were only three breeds, with three groups of color and I now believe I was wrong on that one.

I'm only two weeks in, but I believe I have four breeds. The yellow ones are growing white feathers and are the largest of the chicks. I believe they are leghorns. The brown ones are pretty clearly turning into Rhode Island Reds. Turtle is a wonder though,  while he was still wobbly when we got him, he still - 2 weeks later - is smaller than all of the other chicks and seems to be growing more slowly. I sometimes wonder if he is a bantam. They were all hatched over two days, so even if he was the last one, he shouldn't so much smaller.

Gender has been an interesting thing to research. I find it depends on the breed and can be pretty easy or super difficult. I'll create another post on that topic.

Below are more pictures of the chicks up to 2 weeks old.  I'll be posting more pictures over the next few weeks in a Part II blog post.

Where we are now: On the right is my Barred Rock roo and the left is a hen - 13 Days Old

10 day old Barred Rock and/or Australorp. This is when I realized I likely have different breeds within the black chicks.

Here they were when I first brought them home at 2-3 days old. There were 3 brown ones, 4 yellow and 5 that were mostly black. One of the brown ones was very wobbly and kept falling over on its back, so we named him Turtle.

3 Day Old Leghorn

3 Day Old Barred Rock or Australorp

6 Days Old - I believe an Australorp

6 Days Old - Rhode Island Red

6 Days Old Rhode Island Red

6 Days Old Leghorn

10 Days Old - Turtle is in front left with the yellow fur coat. :-)

This is a 10 Day Old Rhode Island Red. I believe it is female as the feathers on the wings are long and it's growing fast tail feathers as well.