Selfsufficientish.com

Well I had exbatteries for a while now, and the recent price hike from the BHWT has put me off them for good now as they expecting £3-4 for each exbattery hen + donations! (dunno weather they took offence to the £10 I gave them for the last lot)

So after some searching I found a family with a small holding who have a few chicks to let go...

and here they are:



The paper with the scriibles says the following:
Welsummers
Dark Barhma
White Cockin
and Duff Orninton?

I am proud... as this is a another new path I am taking :D :love:

Now questions.... :D

So... the paper should say....

Welsummers
Dark Brahma
White Cochin
and Buff Orpington

OK... on with the questions then.... ?

so eco-mick - have they driven you insane with the noise they make yet?

We have 10 in a bird cage at the moment next to the Rayburn overnight, but I have been putting them outside during the day otherwise they may drive me completely insane!

SusieGee wrote:Can you tell what sex they are at this stage? my fear would be ending up with a load of cockrells

You can, by looking up their bums ... takes a bit of practice though.

Awww soooo cute!

SusieGee wrote:Can you tell what sex they are at this stage? my fear would be ending up with a load of cockrells

There is a little know fact that if you cross Rhode Island with Light Sussex you can easily sex them as the day old males are bright yellow and the females are more orangey.
If you want to breed your own that's a great way of getting meat birds to fatten and saving egg layers for ..err laying eggs.

I'm hatching on a rota basis in the incubator, so we got another 6 chicks yesterday & about 8 ducks due next week - after the first week or so, they go down to the chook house into the baby nursery cage because after the first week, they are NOISY!!

I needed something to pop the tiny babies in whilst in the back room...... and after hatching 14 ducks all at once, I suddenly realised that while it's lovely idea, I didn't have anywhere to put them!!
So.... in one of the cheap shops, I bought one of those clear plastic 3 drawer kids toy units! 3 layers of baby cages, easy to wash, & ventilation controlled by opening the drawer a bit. It works well

I've found that with our brown chicks, it's hard to sex them, but others have more pronounced combs & are the roosters.
As Tony says, whatever comes, it's a great way to have table birds anyway

Odsox wrote:

SusieGee wrote:Can you tell what sex they are at this stage? my fear would be ending up with a load of cockrells

You can, by looking up their bums ... takes a bit of practice though.

I like a challenge- any tips on this please?

As for the noise... interesting as I am partly deaf so its okay and bearable

Have a look here at good 'ole Wiki ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_sexing

I've never liked the vent sexing, if you leave it a week, the combs start to become very pronounced and you can tell the cocks from hens quite easily on our Rhode Island reds, Black Marans, Speckle, Sassos X and whatever sort the grey chickens are (can't remember the name)

i dont worry about sexing them - i let them grow - and eat the ones that crow...