Chick update

Creepy meats are growing and eating like crazy.  No big surprise there.

Getting kind'a crowded in there.

My homegrown chicks have had two more casualties.  One I had to put down, even after doing some fancy hobbling and another I found belly up in the brooder yesterday morning.  I didn't notice anything wrong like intestines bulging out or anything, but who knows what happens to the insides when you push "stuff" back in.

I even had a green egg hatch out this time!  It was the last chick to hatch and it probably had the worst problem with it's abdomen.  I had to keep re-bandaging that little chick and it didn't help that it kept peeping and peeping and peeping like crazy, each "peep" pushing it's insides out.  But it is still alive.

Fifteen homegrown hatchlings!

It seems that I have at least six roosters in this batch.  Given past hatchings, every chick with a white spot on it's head has turned out to be a Barred Rock looking rooster.  Guess it's a sex-link thing.  As for sexing the others, I won't have an idea until they are about three weeks old.  I can usually tell the males from the females then by the size and growth of their combs.

Both the creepy meats and the homegrown chicks are still in the garage as Paul doesn't want to run our hillbilly electricity to the barn (via a 100' extension cord hung high enough on trees so the goats don't chew on it).  This is how we've done it in the past, but it's still more secure to have the chicks in the garage.......although much more stinky.  I'll put them in the barn when they are old enough and feathered out as not to require supplemental heat at night.  They don't have a heat lamp on during the day because it's still been hovering around 100 degrees this past week.

We did, however, receive some blessed and much needed rainfall yesterday.  Over two inches!  And this morning it's a "blustery" 59 degrees......I'm even drinking hot tea!  The forecast for the next few days doesn't even have us getting past the upper 80's.   How wonderful and how I long for Fall!