Well they made it this morning! They were so chilled! All huddled together , I was afraid they were smooooooshed!
Baby Japanese Bantams are here!!
I lifted each one out with just one finger, soooo tiny! Very wobbly and Non-weeble! Oooops! See!
Very very Thirsty and ,Hmmmmm, apparently needing a bath too!
" Haaaaaaa, I pooed on the giant hand ,I pooed on the ha-and, Nana- nana- Boo- boo!"
" Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
Eufaula - - - they are precious. Absolutely precious. How many did you get? They always look so pitiful all huddled up in that box, don't they???? I'm always afraid to start moving them around, I just know one will be squished and doa. Yikes! lol Glad they made it ok, keep the pics coming! Congrats, congrats, congrats!
Belinda
Well, Ive had a bad morining! Two lost! Just tooo small and too traumatized! they didnt even act sick or injured, just layed down and went to sleep! One was a White -black tail, the other a Black. Everyone else seems to be holding their own! One in particular, a little loud mouth, seems tobe related to "Some ones" little Splash Rooster!!
As you can see , they are'nt to much bigger than the Quarter!
Well I ordered 25, but recieved 27, so with the two that died earlier , that puts me right back to what I ordered! Thanks to the good folks at Meyer Hatcheries!
Well rats, I hate to hear that. Probably the two little ones were too stressed from shipment. You know how those little weak ones rarely ever pull through. So sad though. To me, it never gets any easier..........even with ALL the birds we have. The quarter used for reference really shows how SMALL they are! Too cute.
Maybe your little loud mouth and my Lucky are long-lost cousins! lol It never ceases to amaze me at how quickly they establish their pecking order!
Meyer did the right thing by adding a couple of extras for you - - - it worked out just right!
they are all so tiny and I thought maybe there might be too many for on brooder so I separated them! I put all the Blacks and Greys into a little Parakeet cage! there are Nine of them just right for this cage for a little while. I even filled 3 parakeet feeders and put then side by side. I took a small waterer and filled it with pebbles and water so they wont drown. Now they have plenty of room.
They are so cute! It makes me want some! I am afriad that in my city backyard I might not be able to pull off anymore chickens! I already have 11.
Laura
Ireally like the Parakeet feeders! Now the babies cant roost on the feeder and poop in them!
Hey Laura, What kind of chickens do you have? How large is your Chicken area? Maybe you could have a couple more, of the tiny ones!
I have 4 Leghorns, 3 Orpingtons, 3 Autrolarps, 1 Rhode Island Red. I haven't built my chicken space yet. I plan to make it about 5x5 yard area with coop that opens into the chicken yard. I will let them roam free a few hours a day when I can keep watch. I am thinking about using some rabbit hutches to make a nesting/shelter area sort of like this http://image.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/500/5wch_1_x.jpg but with enough room for all my chicks! As you can see I have a lot of work to do!
Laura
Oh my, you do have a lot of work but its on going, believe me! There is always something new to add or change! You find something every day, that you want to do to make it better for your Chicks! I really like the Hutch idea. If you make the yard 5X5, will it be out of fencing or dog chain link panels? Mine are out of 6X10 ft panels. that way I can move their area around the yard to keep it clean and my yard fertilized!
This message was edited Mar 29, 2007 2:48 AM
As you can see, my little house on Stilts is a sad job of carpentry! I used what I had to work with and it is seviceable, Not pretty but seviceable! Lol!
Uh Oh! This tiny little baby is not feeling well. I will have to separate it from the others! So Imature!
Now here is "Tipsy" all of 2and1/2 weeks old, having breakfast with the tiny 3 day old Bantams! I believe "Tipsy" is a wyandott , still not sure ,not until she gets all her feathers!
Now you can see how tiny the new babies are!
Tipsy looks like my Autralorps, one of them has the same kind of markings on the face. She looks HUGE compared to the little bantams! They are just so cute! How is the little yellow one that wasn't feeling well?
I like your coop. That is a good idea with the dog run, I wanted to move mine around too I just wasn't sure how to make it work. The tractors seem more complicated to build and I am not so confident in my carpentry skills!
Laura
Hey Laura, Teensie baby didnt make it! Thats 5 now, that have died, the rest are doing really well though!
Thanks , the stilt house seems to suit my grown bantams fine! If need be I can move the Dog fence alone, without much troble!
Tipsy has a lot of white on both wins and white stripes on her chest , she doesnt really look like my astrolorpes. You cant tell in these pictures of her . Ill have to get her to "Pose" Pretty for ya!!!! Then you will see what I mean! She is also the largest of the 2 week olds , I dont have another like her in the group! My Astrolorpes are almost completely feathered out in black now!
They are so tiny and cute. Poor little babies that died :( They are so small.
I can't wait to get mine from Meyer. I'm doing silkie bantams, too.
Did you put any extra stuff in their water when they came Eufaula?
4xthefun, bantams are super fun and funny. They lay wonderful little eggs. and there's always room for one more, right?..........
LOL, I was thinking the same thing! I had to get more chick feed today so I purposely went to the feed store WITHOUT chicks so I wouldn't be tempted! I probably should focus on building the coop, right? Although I do have a nice sized hamster cage that would make a cozy home for a handful of bantams ;-)
Laura
hey there Sweet BackyardHens, I know you cant wait til your babies get here!
No I didnt put anything in their water! I just dont trust sugars when they are so small! Im afraid of upset tummies, in ones so small and undeveloped! They were just so stressed from the trip, that some always get injured or smooshed! I know that is what happened , cause wings on the tiny one were bent and its head kept turning back! So Very Sad! I have a little graveyard now for the ones that dont make it! Im going to make a little Chicken Garden Ornament to go there!
Laura , Do I ever understand what you mean about avoiding Feedstores with Chicks!!! There is one not far from me that gives away chicks with a bag of feed!!! oooooooohhhhhhh, restraint, restraint!!!! I-I-I-I- g-g-g-g-get the s-s-s-shakes, just thinking about it!!!!!
hahahahah.
It's still a little early here for chicks but we await them with baited breath.
I agree Eufaula, it's sad to lose anyone. We lost a chick last spring. Poor little dear kept peeping so loud, like she couldn't get warm, and ran around in circles. We called her Euclid, after Euclidian Geometry, and hoped she'd get well, but no luck. :(
Do you have any treats you recommend for newly arrived-by-mail chicks other than chick food, water and some love ?
The baby chicks are so cute and hope that little one gets better soon.
Tracey (nicksmom30)
As a matter of fact ,I do have a "Secret", I use and old electric Coffee grinder to gind up a little bit of a hard apple and orange peel, with some flax seed! It seems to give the little one some " Sugar" with no Diarhea! I mix it up with their starter feed and they pick out what the want! Usually its gone in a few minutes! If any is there aftera couple of hours I remove it so as not to sour!
Now with the older Chicks I leave their "Treat" and the next day, usually I notice fruit Flies! this is a great treat for my babies! Of course the chickies are out side,in there own space now, so no flies in the house!!!
So cute, I'm so jealous!! I have 2 little bantams, one old english blue and one bbr. They are the sweetest chickens. I have a few bantam eggs in the bator, but there daddy is a silkie, so I don't know what they will look like. I'll take pictures when they hatch. I'm going to look up Japanese bantams to see what they look like when they grow up.
Cathy
Hey Cathy! Here is a grown pair of my White-Black tail Japanese Bantams!
These are Buff Black-Tail! I still have the Roo, I lost the Hen last Winter! I am hoping to raise some new hens for him from the little ones I have now!
I really love the Japanese Bantams ! They have tiny little short legs so when they walk they just scoot along! So precious! This trait though is due to a gene that kills a lot of them in the egg! So trying to hatch a clutch of Japanese eggs could be very disheartning! You never know if any will hatch or not! So some of the babies I lost were weak from the gene itself that makes them so unique!
Here they are getting used to their new home! I have put them on sand for the first time! The light actually warms the sand up and makes it quite cozy for them! the temperatures turned cooler here in the past 2 days so the warm sand is perfect. It also absorbs waste material too! I just give it a good raking over several times a day and change it out once a week!
I take a small wading pool and put in in a childs zip up camping tent. then put about 2inches of play sand on the bottom.
the chicks here are just getting adjusted to the new environment. The sand hasnt gotten warm yet!
Closing them up for a good nights rest! Youll notice the Screen door! Good snake deterent! I keep these tiny ones close by on an enclosed porch , so no large predators can get to them either! Once they settle down I'll zip up the outer door and the heat from the lamp will keep them nice and warm.
They are so cute. I love the childs tent, what a great idea. Your Japanese batams are so beautiful. I didn't know they were hard to incubate. Thanks for sharing all the wonderful information. I did some searching online yesterday about japanes bantams but learned more from you, LOL.
I'd be too worried I'd set the tent on fire....lol. But I definitely like the pool and sand idea !!
~Julie =0)
Hey I like your chicken coop!!!! What feed do you give to the
bigger chickens????Tracey
Eufaula -
LUV the kiddie pool brooder. Clever use and it gives them such a nice, big area to roam around in. Cute pics as always. Your little ones are so cute and tiny. Hard to believe they grow up so fast isn't it? Your little secret is now girl - - - lol. My babies too love fruit of any type. I have found that honeydew melon seems to be their favorite so far. They will fight over the last little bite!
Belinda
Good morning Y'all! Jab the light in the little tent is clamped on a heavy duty wooden roost and is a good 12 inches from the wall of the tent! Dont worry I dont plan to BBQ , any of my babies!!!LOL!!!!
Hey B., Yep they are growing toooo fast, the older girls are now 3 weeks old and have hardly any fuzz now and are at least 5 times in size! They are starting to look a lot more like their grown ups now! Some even have the begiinings of combs and waddles! One even has started to change its voice, from a "Peep Peep " to a little High pitched " Brawwwwwwwk" , So funny!
The tiny 1 week old Japanese though are the same size only stronger! They are Fiesty too! They play tag and run around like 2 year old people kids do! I have one that looks just like a little penguin, so its name is Happy Feet. then one is mostly Black and is a lot smaller than the rest, Hardly any legs at all, so I have named it( with help from an on line Japanese dictionary) "Mijikai" which means short!
lol @ the BBQ. I can just hear your "Brawwwwwwwwk" right now. It shocks me how quickly they change. They are the fastest changing animal that we have on the farm. I used to think my little lambs grew quickly, HA - - - no comparison what-so-ever. I love the Happy Feet & Mijikai names. Those little short legs are too cute to watch waddle around all over the brooder. They do in fact resemble penguins!