Baby Chicks

Three weeks ago, I set some eggs under my broody hen. I originally had three broody hens, so I ordered some eggs online to put under them. In the time it took to get the eggs, two of the broody hens decided not to be broody anymore, so I had to put all of the eggs I could under one broody hen. I decided 12 was a good number and ended up tossing 3 eggs. I candled the eggs on day 7 and tossed 4 more eggs that looked like they had been scrambled during shipping. We were down to 8. They are supposed to hatch in 20 to 21 days. Last Friday was day 20. That night I heard a faint peeping, but didn't see anything. Saturday morning, the peeping was louder, but the mom was still keeping the babies under wraps. I had no idea how many there were.

Here is a picture of the broody setup.And Miss Nasty Broody.

On Sunday morning, right before church, I went out to check on the babies and there was one laying next to the feeder, completely still and lifeless. Then, I saw a twitch. I was scared of Miss Broody, so I had Nathan grab the baby. He said it was cold and he was pretty sure it was dead. I saw another twitch. I grabbed the baby and held it as close as I could without squishing it. I sent Nathan to the shed for the heat lamp and Jo and Zoey to the garage for a box and some shavings. We set up the temporary nursery and carefully laid the baby on the shavings. Nathan and the kids took off for church and after posting to my favorite chicken chat site for advice, I checked on the baby again. Still nothing.

I remembered reading that you could give compromised chicks Pedialyte, but I didn't have any. I did have some powdered Gatorade. I mixed it up and tried to get the baby to take some with a syringe. I saw the baby's tongue move a little. I ended up leaving a bowl of Gatorade with marbles in it (so the baby wouldn't drown) for the baby and going to church fully expecting to come home to a totally lifeless little baby. I had to teach Sunday School with Nathan, but between S.S. and Relief Society, I came home to check on things. I told Nathan that if it had been dead, I wouldn't do anything, but where it had a chance, I had to do everything I could.

I came home to find a tiny black baby standing on the marbles in the middle of the waterer peeping it's little head off. I went back to find Nathan and tell him everything was good. He informed me that Jo and Zoey had had a prayer on the way to church that the baby would be okay. I had to go get them out of Primary to tell them the baby was okay. They both didn't sound surprised at all. It was exactly what was expected. Oh, to have faith like a little child!!

Sunday afternoon, the baby was SO loud!! I knew that chickens were flock animals and got lonely easily. We decided to try introducing the baby back to the mom. She pecked once, but Nathan assured me that she was pecking him and not the baby. He moved the mom's head out of the way and placed her under the mom. The mom pushed her under her wing with soothing clucking sounds and all was well.

Here is the lucky, blessed chick right before introducing her back to her mom.

I'm grateful for that experience because tonight our experience was not so great. Today was day 23 and we still had 6 eggs that hadn't hatched. I actually thought I'd lost one because when we picked the mom up one time, I only saw 5. I found that last egg tonight. The baby couldn't get out. The humidity had been too low and that had made the barrier very rubbery. She had died inside a half shell and I just thought that it was a hatched egg. I took out the other 5 eggs and found another one that had been scrambled in shipping and 4 more that couldn't get out of the egg. It made me so sad, but I'm very grateful for the two babies that were able to get out. I'm grateful for a mama hen that is taking such good care of her babies. They are adorable together!!

Here are some pictures of the mom with the babies. Enjoy!!

This is the first time I was able to get a picture of a baby with the mom. All of the other times I'd seen a baby out there, it had been a crisis situation and I didn't have time to take pictures.This one I call, "Are You My Mother?" I love it!This is the first time I saw both babies out. The mom had gotten off the nest to get a drink and eat. You can see her settling back down on the eggs. When she got up, both babies decided they needed to get up, too.This is my favorite picture!!And this baby is done.

In the pictures, you can see where I had to cut down one part of the front of the box. We went out twice and had to put a baby back in the box. They could get out, but not get back in. The barrier I made to keep the shavings in was keeping the babies out. We figure that is what happened to that first baby. It got out and couldn't get back in, got exhausted, and couldn't get back to the mom to get warm, so it laid down and almost died. Once again, SO glad we got to it in time!!

There is definitely one that is more curious than the other. It is always out looking around and I only very rarely see the other one. I'm grateful for this experience and I hope I can do it again with better results. For now, I'm glad I have the babies I have.