Monthly Archives: September 2016

More Barred Rock chicks hatching

My brother-in-law’s chickens stopped laying so he needs more hens.  I put six eggs under one Silkie hen and six under another Silkie hen about a week later.  Silkie number one hatched out two chicks yesterday and two were throw away a day or two ago that we could smell were not viable …. rotten.  yuk

We usually check the eggs about day 14 to see if they are fertilized and going to grow into a chick.  I know after day 16, you are not suppose to move the eggs.

So far, Silkie momma #2 is still sitting on six eggs and hers are due to hatch on Thursday, six days from today. I didn’t plan this too well because I don’t really have two nurseries.  Unfortunately, I am recovering from hip replacement surgery so building something right now is impossible.  I figured out something to do temporarily until I see how many chicks the second momma has.  If the first one only has the two and the second momma only has a few, I will give them all to one momma.  Usually, all my eggs hatch out from my Barred Rock so I am a little puzzled why two went rotten and two still haven’t hatched out.  My rooster definitely has his favorites out of the 8 hens he is with.  The hens are about 18 months probably.

Well, I will update this post as the chicks hatch out.  Don’t you love baby chicks.  And these Silkie moms are the best.  I hated hatching in an incubator….adjusting temperature and moisture.  Made me crazy!

Coffee cans are great for scooping

I have barrels that my daughter got for me in NC that fit a 50 lb bag of chicken feed in them perfectly.  I believe they came from a medical factory or something to do with prescription drugs, I think.

I use the plastic coffee cans with the handles for use in my barrels to scoop out chicken feed.  I have chickens in four different yards so it is nice to scoop out half a coffee can full of corn and walk along throwing the corn to the chickens.

I often turn them upside down and hang them on the fence posts if I am busy with other jobs in the yard.

Added a fluffy Silkie rooster to my flock

I love the fluffy Silkies.  I only have four girls and they are probably 2-4 years old but I can’t decide if I want to have more of them or not.  I may buy about 4 more females to breed with my new rooster.

The lady I bought Bernie from raises show Silkies and travels the country getting ribbons for them, I guess so if they are not show quality, you can get them cheap.  I only paid 5 bucks for Bernie.  I asked about buying some of her hens but she said 50 bucks and I said no thank you.  They are just pets for me.

I picked out Bernie among at least 20-25 roosters that were about 7 months old because he was hiding behind the others and acted like he was shy and scared.  He is brown with a lot of other colors mixed in (mostly reddish and blondish).

I brought him home and put him in a yard with the four Silkies and the five Silkie mix hens.  He acted so scared for over a week.  We have had him now for probably 6 weeks and he has fit in perfectly and we actually heard him crow about a week ago.

I wanted to take all the roosters home because the lady we bought him from has over 200 chickens and she said if they don’t sell, she uses them for dog food.  That broke my heart.