R.I.P. Nuggets.

Last year, we started our backyard chicken adventure.  It all began because a friend of Stuart's at work knew that we homeschool and she thought it would be neat for the kids to incubate some eggs and watch them hatch.  She also knew that I was kind of interested in having backyard chickens so we could gather our own fresh eggs each day so she told us we could keep some of the chicks that hatched.  We started with 32 eggs.  The first one to hatch was a little black and yellow cutie.  Stuart named it Nuggets.

Nicholas fell in love with Nuggets.  Eleven total chicks hatched but none ever came close to his heart like Nuggets did.

We all loved Nuggets. 

She got a lot of attention and was often flown around the room in a Star Wars ship or had MagnaTile houses built for her.

As our eleven chicks grew, Stuart made a coop for them outside.  For our size lot, our town only allows us to have 4 hens and no roosters are allowed. But ours were still too young to determine the sex.  They didn't have fully developed combs and waddles and their tail feathers weren't fully grown yet.  So we just kept them all until they would start crowing like a rooster and then we would bring that one back to our farm friend.  It turned out that we were left with exactly four hens out of our bunch.  They were Nuggets, Black Bolt (aka Mr. Troubles), Fire Bolt, and Eleven.  But Nuggets was still everyone's favorite.  She was a little smarter than the rest.  And she liked to swing.

Nuggets is the one standing on Nicholas' leg.

She would come to the kitchen window to visit the kids while they did their school work and the other chickens would follow her.  

She was calm even when being worn as a hat.

Occasionally the kids still bring the chickens back inside.  One day Nicholas had finished his school work and I found him sitting quietly on the couch with Nuggets wrapped in a towel on his lap.  He looked so peaceful and in love.

But Saturday morning, Nicholas went out to check on our girls and Nuggets was not in the coop and there were black feathers scattered around outside of the coop.  We know that there is a bobcat in the area so we are pretty sure that is what got her.  We had heard that a bobcat recently got our neighbor's free range chickens and Stuart thinks he saw a bobcat near the coop one night a few weeks ago.  A while back we stopped letting our chickens have free range of the yard all day long (mostly because they seemed to always come to our deck to poop).  We still let them out if we are out there with them and can shoo them away from the deck.  But they are always in the coop if we aren't out with them and they are always in the coop at night.  

After Nuggets went missing, we studied the coop to try to figure out what happened.  We found a piece of chicken wire had been peeled back where the coop and the run meet.  We knew there was a small gap there but it was too small for a chicken to get out through it so we didn't expect that anything bigger than maybe a squirrel could have gotten in.  I still don't think the bobcat actually got into the run but he must have gotten his arm in there enough to grab Nuggets and pull her out.  We looked around the yard and found no signs of Nuggets other than the black feathers right outside the coop.  No blood, no body.  We did find a bobcat print in a muddy spot on the sidewalk along the side of our house.

I'm still amazed that this could have happened.  Here are some pictures to show you how small of a gap there was.  First, a tour of the coop.  It has 2 nest boxes and 2 roosting bars, and a hanging feeder.  The roof lifts up for access.  There is also a little door on the left side.  Since we added the enclosed run, we no longer open and close that door so it is tied in the open position all the time so the chickens can come and go whenever they want.

Stuart build these two enclosed runs and attached them together and attached them to the coop.  The big blue bucket is their water.

Here is where the bobcat must have gotten Nuggets.  The green netting on the right is on the coop and you can see that the little door is open.  The chicken wire of the run usually covered that gap more than this but it had been pulled back by the bobcat. 

Here is the same corner from a different angle, looking into the coop.  I'm still amazed at how he was able to get Nuggets through that little gap.

Nicholas was obviously upset when he went out yesterday and figured out what had happened.  But I'm so proud of him for quietly coming back inside and getting Stuart.  He didn't want Rachel to get upset because she was about to leave for a birthday party.  After the party, we sat down with her and told her.  Of course, she cried and it broke my heart.    

Needless to say, yesterday there were lots of modifications to the coop and the run.  Hopefully this time it is truly bobcat-proof.

R.I.P. Nuggets.  We love you and miss you.

Helping Baby Chick Eleven Hatch Out From His Egg

We had ten eggs successfully hatch.  Number eleven started to hatch but he stopped making progress.  He cracked his shell and started to work his way around it but then stopped.  He stayed like this for about 2 days. 

We could hear him chirp and make microscopic movements but for some reason he wasn't going to make it out of the shell.  At about midnight last night we checked on the chicks before heading to bed.  We had read that it can be dangerous to help a chick out of their egg but we couldn't just let him stay like that because he wouldn't survive.  If he was trying to hatch then he had probably already absorbed all of the nutrients from yolk of the egg so he would starve to death soon.  So Stuart decided he had to help the chick get out of the egg.  Here's the video of his chick extrication.  It's almost 10 minutes long but even then we weren't done freeing him.

Although the chick was free from the egg, he had a layer of dried stickiness that we hadn't seen with the other chicks.  It is almost like the yoke had broken, leaked onto his head, and then dried.  It had not only glued a piece of shell to the back of his neck but it was also causing his head to stick to his body so he couldn't lift his head at all.  No wonder the poor little guy couldn't turn around in his egg to finish breaking out.  He was glued together and couldn't move.

Since this chick was in his egg longer than he should have been, he had made his first poop inside the egg.  It was green and messy but we had to get him cleaned up.  Baby chicks can't regulate their body temperature and they need to be kept warm so we couldn't just give the little guy a full soaking in a bath.  Stuart patiently worked on him with a damp Q-tip. 

Once he was cleaned up, I used a hair dryer on a low setting while Stuart cradled him in his hands. 

We were hoping to dry him off to warm him up but also to fluff up some of his feathers.  Unfortunately, his feathers seems to have to same weird coating on them and they just wouldn't fluff up even though they were dry.

So here is the little guy after working on him for over an hour.  He still had the piece of egg shell on him and his head was still stuck to him.

I love seeing Stuart's tender heart in action.  He was so sweet and gentle with this tiny little chick.  We just weren't sure what else to do to help him.

We decided to use a little olive oil on a Q-tip to try to help clean away the dried on stickiness.  After about 20 minutes, Stuart was able to get the goop cleared away enough that the chick's head was loose and he could move freely.

We took a break for a bit and gave the chick some water with a dropper.  I'm sure he was feeling 100% better than he had been but he still had that piece of egg shell glued to him.

Stuart worked on his some more with the olive oil on a Q-tip.  It was very time consuming and it was already very late at night but Stuart kept working on him.

Finally he was able to remove the egg shell from the back of the chick's neck.  We used the hair dryer a little more but there was still some dried goop on his feathers and now there was also olive oil so we couldn't get the feathers to fluff up.  That could be a problem for him keeping himself warm but it was now 2:00 in the morning and we had to get to bed.  We tucked baby chick Eleven back into the incubator to stay warm for the night.

More Baby Chick Pictures (because they are just too cute!)

I started writing this post about a month ago and I just realized that it never published.  I have a few others that are started and not finished.  But for now these pictures are too cute not to share!

We are loving our baby chicks!  We had our first chick hatch on Tuesday.  We named him Nuggets.  On Wednesday morning we had two cute blonde chicks hatch.  We named them Barbeque and Rotisserie.  This is Rotisserie.

The chicks need a lot of warmth when they are first born and they seem to love being cradled in our hands.

Barbeque fell asleep in Rachel's hands.

Rachel insists that Barbeque is a female because she is just too cute to be a boy.

Nicholas is in love with Nuggets.  They are almost inseparable.

The kids tried to get their school work done but they were too distracted by the baby chicks so we gave up on it for this morning.  They will only be fluff balls for a short time so I let them just play.  The first three chicks that hatched seem to be the favorites and they all have names.

But more of them joined us at the table.  Here Rachel is trying to call a chick to come to her!

Nicholas assigned a small toy hockey helmet to be Nugget's personal transportation pod.  He puts Nuggets in this whenever he is going to shuttle him somewhere.

It is supposedly easier to identify male and female chicks if you look at their wing feathers within the first 24 hours of hatching.  We haven't quite figured it all out yet but we think Nuggets might be a female.  Nicholas hopes that it is a female because IF we keep them beyond the chick phase, we will only keep 4 and they will have to be hens.  No roosters are allowed on our size lot because the neighbors are too close.

Here is our little brood.  We are keeping them in a cardboard box with a desk lamp shining on them for heat. 

We play with them most of the day.  It is hard to get anything else done when these cuties are right there and their little chirps are just so cute!

Hatching Baby Chicks

Nuggets was our first chick to hatch but the next day we had two more hatch and then a few more hatched each day over the next few days.  It has been fun to watch the whole hatching process.

The chicks began hatching after sitting in the incubator for 21 days.  Their beaks develop with a little piece the protrudes out of the end of the beak.  It is called the egg tooth and it is used to help the chick break out of its shell.  They use the egg tooth to make the first break in the shell and then they rotate themselves around inside the shell while continuing to use that egg tooth to break more shell.

It can take several hours for them to finally get out of the egg.  They usually end up cutting the egg in half and then just popping out.

We check the incubator throughout the day to monitor new egg activity.  It is so exciting to see a new crack in an egg.  Here is a video of a baby chick coming out of his egg.  This was such an amazing experience to watch.

Newly hatched chicks are clumsy but they have the cutest little chirps!  And you can often hear the chirps from other chicks that are still inside their egg.


When the chick first comes out of the egg it is wet and needs to be kept warm in the incubator for about a day until it has completely dried out and the feathers have fluffed up.  

A newly born chick can go a day or two without food because they have just eaten all of the nutrients inside the egg.  But after a day or so, we gave them some medicated chick granules.  They contain a medication to prevent coccidiostats which is an internal parasite that chicks can get.  We used a Rubbermaid food storage lid as a makeshift chick feeder. 

Once they are dry they are just cute little fluff balls and it is ok to handle them.

This chick below is the one Stuart has named Rotisserie but Rachel doesn't like that name.  She calls it Cutie.

Here is our first chick, Nuggets, hanging out with his brothers and sisters.

Nuggets - Our First Baby Chick

We buy fresh eggs every week from one of Stuart's co-workers who has backyard chickens.  Her husband homeschools their children so they appreciate hands-on learning opportunities and she also knows we have been at least a little interested in having our own backyard chickens.  So now that she is ready to get a few more chickens, she asked us if we would like to watch them hatch.  She said we can give them back or even keep them if we decide we want to.

She gave us 32 eggs and let us borrow her incubator and rocker.  The incubator keeps the eggs at 99.5 degrees.   The trays in the bottom hold water to keep humidity in the air. The rocker very gently rocks the eggs and slowly turns them.  The eggs stay in the rocker for 18 days then we will remove it and allow the chicks to position themselves property for hatching. 

The eggs started hatching on the morning of day 21, just as expected.  We woke up to this fun sight!!

A little while later, the chick had completed hatched out of his egg but he didn't look much like a chick.  He was very wet and very small.  He was also very chirpy!

We left him in the incubator until he dried out and his feathers fluffed up.  By the end of the day we were able to take him out and hold him for a little while.  He still needed to be kept warm so we only took him out for a little while at a time then we put him back in the incubator for a while. 

Nicholas made a play area for him in a cardboard box!

Here's a video of him checking out his home.  Listen to the cute chirps!

Newly hatched chicks don't need food right away because they fill their bellies with their egg's yolk right before they hatch. They can go a day or two before they need food. Stuart was able to bring home some baby chick medicated food crumbles so we were able to get some food to him by the end of the day. Here's a video of him trying out his crumbles...and then walking through it.


The kids just love holding and talking to our baby chick.

I finally had a chance to hold this little fluff ball myself.  He is so little and cute!

I can't believe this is the same chick that came out of his egg earlier today looking so wet and scrawny!

Stuart decided that this baby chick would be named Nuggets.  When the next chicks are born they will be named Rotisserie and BBQ.  Ha ha!

Stuart is so gentle with little Nuggets. I think he likes him :)

I think Nuggets likes him too because he fell asleep in his warm hands.  Or perhaps he was just worn out from all the attention he got today!