House Chick Update

Two days on and Persimmon is growing very nicely. In hope of having a hen, we have chosen to use feminine pronouns until proven otherwise.

Miss P. enjoys periodic forays to the kitchen or outside with me while I garden. Some of the pussycats are intrigued and the dogs desperately want her to play. Rufus play bows and everything. Right now Persimmon is running around the keyboard 'helping' me write. She'd follow me around everywhere if I let her.

Last evening another chick hatched from an egg I had presumed dead but which Squeaky refused to leave. Squeaky is still a horrible mother and let the poor thing wander off to be beaned by Miss Bett. I must have found it just after it happened because the chick was still crying and not too cold.

I brought it in, cleaned up it's torn skin, and gave it a home in a cage within Persimmon's cage to see if it would revive and live through the night. Remarkably, it has! It is eating and drinking well on its' own. FYI, chicks really dig sugar water. (They do a little head wriggle when something new is especially wonderful.) She is getting Chick Quick and OTC doxycycline in her water to keep infection at bay. Please cross your fingers and say your prayers that she makes it.

So, now we have TWO chicks living in the house. This new one is a bantam Cochin x Dominique with classic female markings: dark legs and a tight white spot on her head. Any suggestions for naming this one? She's only got one operable eye and will never have feathers on her cheeks.

P.S. In an unrelated development, the farm has received nearly half an inch of rain over the last two days! Hurrah!!!

Miss Bett's Memorial Day Babies

I check on the chickens about mid-day most days. Today's check, as all others, included an inspection of the eggs under my broody girls. Little Squeaky is sitting on six banty eggs. I presume they are all hers as there is no variation. She might be a mama about June 17th although the quality of her shells is not great. She's the first of our Cochins to go broody and could use the time away from the roosters to regrow her feathers. The big girls seem utterly disinclined but that's OK as they earn their keep with great big eggs.

Miss Bett has been on her clutch for about a month. The girls seem to like to spend a week or two collecting eggs in their nest before getting down to the business of incubation. The magic number of eggs around Stratheden seems to be five, real or fake, acquired over several days. (They'd like more.) As you can see from the picture, today was hatch day! All came from large eggs.

Two chicks seem to have bantam Cochin daddys. That cute yellow chick is a biggie but my red roosters are both bantams, so it's counted as a bantam x. Another is all black and comparatively small. Four of the chicks have feathered legs which confirms Cochin parentage. We'll have to wait until these babies grow proper feathers (about four weeks) to know if any of the chicks are "frizzled." Three chicks have the classic markings of a Dominique chick. All their head spots seem fairly compact, suggesting they are females.

When Bett went broody again I decided to test an old wive's tale about sexing by egg shape. I took away any egg that was especially round or (more often) long as the books say neither produces "good chickens." (Whatever that may mean.) I then removed any particularly pointy egg on the theory that well pointed eggs are more often roosters. This left just the lovely, slightly rounded, "female" eggs.

In another day or so I should be able to "wing feather sex" them to determine how many girls and boys we have.