Saturday, June 6, 2009

Gracie's brood

I discovered how to properly use my camera and like all proud parents, I made this short clip of the kids! Now everyone feel free to go aaaaawe. Here is my Gracie with the six chicks, the white chick is already named Paris and the little black chick with the white tummy is Fern. You will hear Chico crow like the proud papa he is in the back ground.

I see a lot of other chicken blog people are having good luck with hatching chicks as well. I think any of Gracie's black chicks should be super broody moms next year, seeing that silkie hens are suppose to be the most broody and cochin hens are suppose to be one of the best mothers, the little guys should turn out to be tiny hatching machines with good genes from both breeds.

Oddly enough, Lucy my black sex-link hen is walking around clucking with raised feathers, showing all the signs of a hen that wants to start hatching. She will not sit on the eggs however and being bred for laying from a hatchery, I don't think I would trust her to follow through on hatching eggs. I think Gracie will want to have a second brood later in the season so if I want more, I will just let her to the job.

Some people have been talking about the benefits of having a hen raise the chicks instead of by heat lamps etc. My two cents on the matter is this, I think "mother knows best" when on a small farm. I can understand if you have a large operation you would not have time to wait on a bunch of hens to go broody, you would need to order large numbers. With broody hens you also do not know when that date will happen, but if you keep a small number of chickens, then I highly recommend letting hens hatch out your chicks. At different times I have mentioned that I had to raise my own chickens when I was a teen, my area was too remote to get in chicks and no one around had chickens to sell. I raised a lot of good layers by placing eggs from laying hens, under broody bantams. I find the bantams make the best moms, it is one of the reasons I got Gracie. It is just so much easier with a mother taking care of them, plus you will notice a difference in how the chicks sound. Chicks with no mother are always chirping really loud, because basically they are looking for their mother, chicks with a mother hen make cute little peeping sounds because they are happy under a mother's care. A person can still buy chicks and place them under a brooding hen, there is a slight trick to that but it is not hard to do.

Mostly I just like to watch a mother hen with chicks.

8 comments:

Jennifer said...

Great videos! I really enjoyed watching them. Those chicks sure are cute at that age.

Tracey said...

Awwwwwwwww!!! Absolutely fantastic!
Hows things on the home front?
Tracey xxx

nobody-but-us-chickens said...

Jennifer: Thanks, they get big so fast I wanted to get them before the feathers start to come in. I just learned how to use the film part of my camera that day. I did notknow how easy it was. I really enjoyed your film of the goat trying to get the leaves, I did not know they could stand up like that.

Tracey: Don't you just want to pick one up, they feel as cute as they look.

Home front is very stressful, not only do we have to deal with illness, doctors and hospitals but regarding government, lawyers and banks, you can not believe the way the vultures begin to circle around trying to pull a fast one over my mother. Lucky for us my sister is a bit of a bulldog when it comes to that and a few people had their heads bitten off this week.

bubble said...

awww...my little girl wants one of those :)

and in reply to your comment...whose the big chicken?!?! your scared of spiders too...yes that did make me laugh!! I will be looking in the bath now thanks to you!! lol

Amy xxx

Amy said...

Awww, congratulations! Yes, it seems we've all got babies running around the place.

Amri Valencia said...

Pretty cute! But guess what? I don't have to feel jealous because WE have a duckling!!! I had to get an incubator so I can hatch some chicks. It isn't the same but maybe (if the incubator works) one of the chicks will grow up to be a broody!

John Going Gently said...

nice to have you back steve.
mother doesn't always knows best.... some broodies just don't stop being broody......even when babies appear.....
didn't know the way of sexing chicks by foot position, facinating!!!!

amna said...

Absolutely gorgeous chicks, They are stress relievers. Awesome that you are able to name them one by one..i would just name them according to their distinct colours if i'm in your place, hahaha!
Congrats to your new babies!