Pleasant Surprise

I have been busy with projects around the house and haven't been able to update in the last couple of months.  By the end of the breeding season I ended up with 21 chicks out of 4 hens.  That averages out to a ratio of 5.25 chicks per hen.  The result was better than I had expected and it was a pleasant surprise.  Last year I produced only 6 chicks out of 4 hens which average out to 1.5 chicks per hen.

 

So what did I do differently this year?

1. The borders were better conditioned prior to the breeding season.

2. Soya bean and broccoli veggie mix was used to condition the borders and it was consistently feed to the birds throughout the breeding season.

3. I had more cock birds to work with.  I only had 2 cock birds last year and one of them was very clumsy which resulted in lots of clear eggs.

4. No vegetables were fed to the chicks until they were over 8 days old.  I lost several chicks last year for no apparent reason and I clearly remembered that they were stuffed with green peas the night before they died.  The dead chicks had red swollen crops.  This past season I had no unexplained chick deaths.  I lost 3 chicks to mites and that was the total number of chicks that didn't make it.

5. A different brand of vitamin was used.

 

 One of the young birds that hatched this past breeding season and is still not finished with the moult.  This is the same bird in the 5th picture below.