Chickens and baby chicks

Last time I posted about our sumatra she had 3 chicks, well the coyotes struck and ended up eating not only her babies but her as well. That has left us a little peeved, but at least some of our other birds are broody.

On Tuesday night we took the piggies their food after fighter practice and heard some baby chirping. We walked over to the old coop and found a baby chick on the floor flailing around. I picked him up and took him into the house and placed him with the turkeys. I brought him food and water with some apple cider vinegar and had him drink a little bit. He then laid there and looked really sad. We weren't sure if he was going to make it. Jed worked in the morning so I made sure to go check on the chick and the old coop in the morning. The chick looked content as it was surrounded by the turkeys. The turkeys had all jumped from their roosts on top of the box and kept him warm. I found another baby chick on the floor of the coop in the morning and I took him in and did the same with food and water.

After getting home from work I went straight out to the coop to see if there were any others. I found three live chicks huddled together and one dead chick off to the side. =( I picked up the live chicks and noticed that there was a chick with the geese. It was a cute fluffy grey chick. I was huddled with the goose so I couldn't go and just pick it up. I brought them in and gave them food and water. I walked out after that and went back outside to see another baby chick fall out from under the turkey to the ground. I picked it up and brought it in. In all we ended up with 9 inside, but unfortunately one drowned. =( I'm not sure what I could have done as it was shallower then any of our chick water dispensers. On the plus side it was the only chick that looked to be a cross with the polish so I guess it was just fate that it would not grow up to breed. I ended up planting it at the base of one of the elderberries this morning.

We're going to see if one of our neighbors is still looking for baby chicks and see if he would like to pick out some of our little guys. So to re-cap we have 8 healthy happy chicks inside, one confused chick outside that was hatched by a turkey and thinks it's a goose and our two sad chicks that were laid to rest with trees. We'll see how our other chickens do.