A day of joy and sadness

This is an 11 day old chick.

It's amazing how much they grow and change in such a short space of time.

I was reading this morning about 'feather sexing' which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds.  It's where you spread the wing of a day old chick, and depending on the arrangement of the feathers you can tell whether its a pullet or a rooster. 

Girls have longer flight feathers than 'coverts', in boys they're the same length. 

Obviously it's too late to tell with Alice's bubbas but I had a go with Angelina's new brood.  I couldn't see any difference.

Today was a roller coaster day of joy and sadness and joy and sadness.

Angelina hatched eight chicks but I am sad to report one drowned in the water dish. It was very shallow but still enough for the little chick to drown.

Providing water to the mother hen is always a bit of a dilemma. She needs to dip her body in water to increase the humidity around the eggs when they are hatching; but when they do hatch that same source of water becomes a hazard.

Tomorrow we may be back up to eight chicks. One egg hadn't hatched and it had gone cold because Angelina had moved out of the nest to care for the other chicks.

Then just as it was being put into the rubbish bin along with the hatched shells we heard it cheeping, then a tiny hole appeared; so we put it back in the next.

One of the chicks is not quite right.
It is VERY small, its down is a strange texture and it's shape is a bit peculiar.

I hope he straightens out.

I've called him NQR. 



Alice's chicks seem gigantic compared to these new chicks, particularly the tiny NQR.

They were quite independent today, spread out and doing different things.

After today's ups and downs I realise we were so fortunate with all 9 of this lot being healthy and safe.

Tomorrow I'll find a link for the feather sexing so you can give it a try if ever you have day old chicks.