OK, The chicks are cannibals. I didn't want to do it but the care instructions made me. I hoped that the chicks would exercise restraint, but I was wrong. Isn't this grown up Guinea pretty?
Anyhow, the instructions said to feed the chick cooked egg yokes - yes, egg yokes. The cannibals wolfed them down without a second thought, and the guineas, chicks, and ducklings are all doing great. The ducklings even had some chopped greens with their chicken - I mean yokes.
(Giggling) : D
ReplyDeleteI feed cooked eggs to my chicks in the early days. Egg yolks are not chicks, nor do they become chicks. In the last day before hatching, the chick draws the yolk into its abdomen for sustenance to keep it alive while Momma hen hatches the remainder of her chickies. This is why you can buy chicks and have them shipped to you safely through the mail over the course of a couple days. It's also the reason you shouldn't "help" a chick in the incubator (if you ever go that route) because it may not have absorbed the yolk yet, and will die. I dropped an egg after removing the egg turner during the last couple days of hatching, and while it was a fascinating biology lesson, it wasn't fun to watch the little chick die with that egg yolk outside its body.
Good luck with your little cannibals! : D
~ Ronda
Ronda, I read about the shipping and yoke workings in several books and on the chicken hatchery websites - but the cannibal storyline was too dramatic to pass up.
ReplyDeletejust caught your blog through lynns and your comments about the guineas I found interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn november I raised 6 under an incubator and when they were ready to be released I wish I had given them a guinea mother as a few of them had problems with roosting out of the way of foxes....lost a couple that way...
My family has kept pet birds (Parakeets, Parrots, Finches, etc) for years and I've seen this recommendation for them as well. It seems kind of counterintuitive, but I guess it is a good source of protein and nutrients.
ReplyDeleteI love your boots. Very cheerful as a nice distraction. :o)
ReplyDeleteLooks like your chicks are brand new - are you using a red heat lamp? That helps them to not peck at wounds which naturally attract their eyes and beaks.
Have them got plenty else to peck at to keep busy? If you put weeds and grasses covering the bottoms of the box, they will be engrossed in finding all sorts of things to exercise their future skills.
~Faith
Faith, Thank you for the tip - we will put some grasses in with them tomorrow. As for the red light - yep, using that one.
ReplyDelete