My Chicks Hatched!

in #photography4 years ago

This announcement may seem like it's coming out of nowhere, since I'm not exactly the most prolific blogger, but long-time and/or cross-platform followers of mine will know that I have chickens. Well, one of them recently got broody, so I gave her some additional eggs. She sat on a dozen, and today, nine of them hatched! Careful examination of the other three showed that they weren't fertile.

DSC_0202.JPG

As you can probably tell (if you're familiar with chicken breeds, that is), the hen is a Black Australorp, as are all but one of the chicks. The odd one out is from an "easter-egger" that I got as a gift from my neighbour a few years ago. Still, the eggs that hatched today came from at least four different chickens.

DSC_0203.JPG

DSC_0204.JPG

The dust that is sprinkled about is diatomaceous earth, a powder made from the shells of diatoms. Its purpose is to kill feather mites. Adult chickens can deal with them, but I'd rather not have the chicks infested, especially since they like to peck at everything. Actually, so the adults. Fingers look especially tasty - and yes, I know the difference between a "oh, that looks yummy" peck and a "get your hand out my nest" peck.

DSC_0205.JPG

There's the odd one out again. I hope it doesn't end up at the very bottom of the pecking order - chickens unfortunate enough to be at the very bottom don't live too long. Still, a lot of these chickens are going to end up getting slaughtered, and I'll keep one or two to slowly grow the flock and keep up egg production.

DSC_0207.JPG

DSC_0209.JPG

Those are the shells from the eggs that just hatched in the dish. Yes, chickens eat eggshells. After all, they need the minerals to make eggshells in the first place. All eggshells in my house get fed to the chickens (along with all the other table scraps, as long as they don't have garlic or onions).

DSC_0210.JPG

I'm not sure how well you can see this, but one of the chicks is poking its head out from the hen's feathers. All nine of them can fit quite comfortably underneath the hen's fluff, and you'd never know they're there if they're not cheeping.

I took some short video clips as well, but I had to hold a torch over the chicks, since it's very dark in the coop. The flash on my camera works only for stills. Maybe I'll make a short video, maybe not. Either way, that will be for another time, since I'm in the middle of working on yet another model tank.

Sort:  

Fresh chicken nuggets! Yay!

With homemade hot sauce!

Seriously, my ghost peppers are ready, but the chickens need three or four months.

The odd one has a beautiful pattern.

Since posting this, I have uploaded a short video to BitChute. They are so much cuter with sound.