New Chicks V.5

I used to think that chicks were the cutest thing ever, but now I think that chicks with a mother hen are the cutest thing ever.


She's teaching them the all important skill of scratching in the dirt.

New Chicks

So I feel like I waited forever for these eggs to hatch.


Then once it started it was like an avalanche. They popped out like firecrackers.






Monstrous



and adorable


These are a cross between my Silver Penciled Rock roosters and Black Australorp hens. They look the way hens did when they were chicks, mostly black with some yellow. The SPRs were brown as chicks. Maybe these will grow up to be black like their beautiful mothers.

Chicks Move to Big Coop

I cordoned off a section of the big coop so that I could move the chicks up and they would be protected while everyone got used to each other. I moved them at night and when I got to the coop the next morning the chicks had broken out and were running around with the big chickens. I was concerned that the big roosters would mess with the Silver Laced Wyandotte cockerels but it was the hens that seemed the most pissed off at the interlopers.

This Silver Penciled Rock hen has the SLW pullet cornered under the nest boxes.



One of the SLW cockerels tries to take on Brian Feathers an Old English Game Bantam. The SLW is about 3 times bigger than Brian.



Brian has a big heart though and quickly sends all of the SLWs back into hiding.


Things have calmed down a little now but it's going to take a while before a new hierarchy is sorted out.