Category: chickens (Page 7 of 12)

Another hen went broody this year, and so we put her in one of the little fence pens we have in the barn stall. At one point it looked like she had fewer eggs under her than I originally thought I had put under her, and then one day, the hay on the ground around her was scattered about, and so were some eggs. We had had a couple of young chickens die in a barn stall chicken pen before, where their heads were slicked back, and figured that a snake had tried to swallow them but found them too big. Well, I figured our barn snake was the culprit here, so I moved her into the summer kitchen with her eggs, and she hatched out three!

And here they all are, a bit grown up as you can see, still doing well, with thanks to God!

And their video:

As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for granting these new provisions of chickens!

— David

God has graciously granted yet another two sets of chicks to be hatched out in the 2015!

Here is the seventh group in the mini-chicken tractor:

She hatched out five chicks, but one was something of a runt and took much more time to grow, and usually they don’t make it. You can see the little one in this video. It actually went along several weeks, seemingly getting stronger. However, one day, for some reason its little head started to twist and want to stay that way, and it just could not keep it upright anymore; and so, I made the personally tough decision to euthanize it, figuring it was now in a bad way and just wasn’t going to be able to sustain itself. 🙁

And here they are before that time. The other four are still healthy and doing well!

And this is group eight! I believe she hatched out at least eight, maybe nine, and there are seven still going strong; and thankfully they haven’t had the little sickness that has run through some of the other groups:

And here’s their video:

We are very grateful to the Lord for the continued health and safety of the hatchlings, and His continued provisions in this way!

— David

God has continued to grant us chicken hatchings, this time they are the fifth and sixth groups!

This mommy Sue found broody up in a goat shed, and so we brought her into the summer kitchen, put some eggs under her, and she hatched out 10 I believe! I believe one ended up not making it, and we also had the same sickness problem run through several of them like with the fourth group, but we kept giving them Angstrom ionic silver, and by God’s graces all nine are still going today!

Here is their video:

This next batch was a surprise group — one day, the mommy just showed up in the middle of the barn with some chicks in tow! Wow, thankfully a cat or otherwise didn’t get them! So, we hustled them into the summer kitchen as well, and here they are, all five still alive!

And here is their video too:

As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for granting these provisions of the new chicks, and for the continued health and safety of those to which He sovereignly chooses to grant those!

— David

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