Category: agrarianism (Page 14 of 21)

The Lord has graciously kept a-coming the little chicks to be hatched out! In this post, I’m including both groups 3 and 4.

Here is group 3, in the barn stall. I don’t remember well, but I think she hatched out six, and they’re all still going today!

And here’s their video:

Group 4 ended up, and still is, quite interesting. We had this mama in our summer kitchen pantry, with 12 eggs under her, and I think for the first time, we got 100% hatched out! Neat! Thanks to God!

One day though a few weeks into it, I noticed some of the chicks started getting that sick chicken look, where their head starts to rest back on their neck, and they start standing around not doing “chicken things,” and with their wings partially pointed down. With that, we usually start an ionic 600 ppm silver regimen of about 1/4 CC 3-4 times a day; and if they’re not eating, I mix in 1 1/4 CC egg yoke and 1 1/2 CC goat milk. Well, before I could really get things going, two died within a day, and probably half or more of the ones left were showing signs of sickness. Uh oh. We’ve never had a disease sweep through a hatching of chicks before like this, that I can recall.

I figured something in their environment was causing the issue, so we moved group 2 out of the barn into our pen area with group 1 that we had already moved, and moved this group 4 into the barn, and started the silver (and yoke/milk regimen where needed) on all of the sickies, plus silver even for the healthy ones morning and night.

Thankfully, by God’s graces, after over a week now, it appears the “bleeding” has stopped. We’ve lost no more, and most appear to have turned the corner. The “worst” chicken baton has been passed around a few times to different chicks, and there is one holding it now, but thankfully it’s only one, and Lord willing, this one will pull out of it too. As of today, I’m trying to back off the regimen to giving silver for all of them in the evening, and morning and afternoon for only the sick looking ones. Thankfully too, the mommy chicken doesn’t seem to be affected with sickness.

I plan to clean out the pantry of the summer kitchen really well and probably spray down the concrete with white vinegar or something before putting any more chickens in their for brooding.

Never a dull moment around here! But the Lord was merciful in allowing us to keep the ten currently alive! And here they are about a month ago when all were still going:

And their video too:

As always, we are grateful to God for His continued provisions, and Him granting the healing He has on most of the ailing chicks!

— David

Here come the second batch of chicks! Again, God graciously granted another set to hatch! This mama we set up in our first barn stall. At this point, I’m not sure how many she hatched out. In the video I say maybe ten, but I sort of remember only eight when I finally started counting, but now she’s down to six. I know I found two out one time and put them back, and I know I found one that had died in the cage area, but I’m not sure what happened to others if there were any. If so, I’m thinking maybe they got out and then maybe something got to them.

But, we are thankful for these six, and here they are:

And their video:

Again, we are grateful to the Lord for granting this next batch of chicks!

— David

Apparently, God’s Spring-season “Broody Time!” memo went out, because He has begun to graciously grant the chicks to start a hatching!

This is round number one, which we usually start in the mini-chicken tractor. It’s an Australorp mama that hatched out six chicks, all of which are still going strong!

Here they are at just a few days old! It’s amazing to me how they can be all squashed up in a little egg like that, and peck their way out — more of God’s miracle ways!

Here’s a video of them:

We are always very grateful to the Lord for Him perpetuating His animal provisions!

— David