Meet the new family

This is an almost 1 week old chick. One of three in the eggs hatched by the lovely Salt and Pepper.

She is a great mother; So attentive that after 7 days they are still relying on her to place down each morsel for them to eat -- even when they are literally standing ankle deep in food.

They would usually be feeding themselves by now but I suppose when you only have a small number of chicks to care for, they each get lots of attention and don't have to learn to fend for themselves as quickly.

Poor chicks hatched in incubators and raised in brooder boxes have to fend for themselves or die of hunger -- they usually start pecking at anything after 2 days, hopefully only food is available to them.

Mother hens teach their chicks what is on and off limits. 

Mother hens are teaching their chicks while they are still inside their egg. She uses different little clucks and clicks to communicate and encourage them out of their eggs when it is time to hatch.

She has a specific sound to urge them on when it is all seeming too hard.

The best an incubator chick can expect is the constant whirl of a fan.

This little family are living indoors at the moment because the garden we have moved to has lots of magpies and they make the chooks nervous.

I have ordered some new feeders that will hopefully make this place less attractive to the interlopers -- I think I'm feeding all the wild birds across central Gippsland at the moment with grain.