[Stree]

Hello, been a while since I last posted.....Just to let you know, went to get some new stock last sunday.
The lad we bought from specialises in Orpingtons, especially Buffs, but has every sort of Orpington plus other breeds...
Difficult to choose what to get but ended up with 3 chocolate Orpington hens and a black cockerel from Blue Card stock ( whatever that is ) all about a month old,
2 lace orpingtons, a light sussex and 2 faverills all about 10 days old.
Built a little chick pen inside my greenhouse ( The lean to one in the building forum)
so have power there and of course its snug and safe.
Realised we would need a heat lamp for the youngest ones because only covered in down, no feathers yet........Hmmmmmmmmm where to magic up a heat lamp on a Sunday..So necessity being the mother in law of invention, got  a  batten type light fitting, an empty Roses chocolate tin and some hanging basket chains and Voila!  One working heatlamp.
On a roll now so made up some little feeders and drinkers from empty bean tins and various plastic lids! all work a treat.
All chicks doing very well and shift food like there's no tomorrow. Ran out of the fine chick mash today, so as a temp measure put some layers pellets into a muslin bag and bashed with a mallet to pulverise. Seems the same as the chick mash.........What do you think?


PS. I cannot count. There is also a gold laced Orpington so its 9 altogether...

[Casey76]

Please buy some proper chick starter as soon as you can.  Layers doesn't have enough protein in it for growing chicks, and has too much calcium which can make the bones too brittle at such a young age.

All of the chicks need to be under heat lamps, but the month old chicks will need less heat than the 10 day old ones, so should be in separate brooders.

Is your greenhouse fully insulated?  Is it polycarb or glass?  I'd imagine that the temperature in the greenhouse will drop dramatically during the night, which is not good for the chicks - especially the younger ones.

Good luck with them, but I really urge you to get a proper heat source sorted out for them - at this age they will spend all their energy trying to keep warm instead of growing.

[Stree]

Thank you for your concern.... The foodstuff is a stopgap until I get some more in the morning.....As for the heat..........they are in an enclosure constructed the following way.
On 3 sides, consisting of brick, then 3" insulation then 1/2" plywood. 20 inches above them forming a roof  is timber shelving with plastic matting over for plant staging. The floor is visquine membrane, then  4" timbers with insulation in between, covered with 3/4" timber then clad with 1/2" play and then a good layer of clean softwood shavings...... The front is 1/3rd covered with plywood the rest is netting to keep them in. The older birds with substantially more feather are in the same housing with a ply board separating them from the younger ones.
One of the walls is a party wall to my workshop and  3 feet on the other side of it is my workshop stove, which is going 24 hours  a day, keeping that wall as a heatstore.
In all the severe up to minus 16 frost over winter the greenhouse never had any frost or ice in it even when at times the stove was not going......It is totally draughtproof and I have no concerns about the chicks welfare as far as heating is concerned although I do appreciate how you might see the situation without knowing the above.
I might add that my daughter has a degree in animal welfare and management and would be the first to point out any shortfalls in my setup!

[GrannieAnnie]

Hi Stree, must say, that set up sounds very complicated, and I understand that it is warm and draughtproof, but make sure it isn't too warm!  The 10 day old chicks need to be at about 31C now, but also need to have a cooler area to retreat to if they get too warm.  The month olds should be coming off heat during the day now as long as it isn't too cold.

And I hope you get that chick crumb soon.  The experts say that the most important time of a chickens life is that first month.  Get it wrong and you could have problems with their health later on.

Good luck with them!!

[Stree]

new stock of growers chick crumbs first thing this AM, which means that they have had ONE feed of my improvised stuff. Hope that puts your minds at rest.
Sounds complicated? Only because its described in detail, because I felt I was more or less accused of mistreating the chicks by inadequate and ill thought out housing. I was hoping that by giving a full account of my provision for the chicks welfare it would become obvious that more than a little thought has gone into what they require to be happy healthy and safe.
But no doubt what experts say about exactly  the right temperature and humidity etc will be the only way to do it and I will have it wrong if I veer from exact requirements.

I went to collect the last chick this morning,  the Light Sussex, and thats when I collected the chick food, and I took the opportunity to share this post and the response it got with the breeder.
Bearing in mind he breeds show winning pedigree birds amongst others, and breeds hundreds of chicks a year, keeping about 150 hens of various breeds at any given time all of which are fine prime examples, show winners in fact, I tend to value what his thoughts and opinions are on what is acceptable  in terms of rearing and keeping chicks and chickens.
Suffice it to say he is more than happy with how the chicks he hatched are being provided for by me.
I had hoped that by posting as per my original post I would get tales from other keepers of the breeds I have now got, maybe hints and tips on chick raising, perhaps even congratulations but it seems I am instead fending off slights and  veiled accusations of maltreatment so as you might imagine, disappointment is hardly the word.
Perhaps this should be my last post here..... Just say the word.

[Lindeggs]

Well to be fair I think the two answers you got were in response to your direct question:

...Ran out of the fine chick mash today, so as a temp measure put some layers pellets into a muslin bag and bashed with a mallet to pulverise. Seems the same as the chick mash.........What do you think?

So the question was answered: No, pulverised layers pellets are not the same as chick mash (plus more details on the reasons why the differences are important).

Also until you explained your setup, of course nobody knows how much you know about caring for chicks of the different ages, so they helpully explained what you need to know.

There are plenty of people who come on here with their brand new chicks and haven't done any preparation in advance, and don't know how to care for them properly.  Personally I'm very grateful for the helpful people here who willingly share the information with less experienced chicken-keepers.  Many chickens' lives have been saved (and many keepers saved from disappointment and distress) by the willingness of people here to share their knowledge.

[Casey76]

Stree, I think you probably would have received more answers about your chickens if you had phrased your question in a different way... say "I'be just bought some month old and some 10 day old Orpingtons, Sussex and Faverolles - has anyone had experience with them, and give me some tips please?"

I would still have responded with the fact that the month olds and 10 day olds need to have two different temperatures

I'm guessing that your Orps and Faverolles are exhibition stock, if the breeder regularly show and wins with his birds.  Here are my tips on raising exhibtion stock...

1) If you intend to show, once the chicks are 8 weeks old, put them on a grower pellet, and keep them on growers until maturity when you can switch them to a breeder pellet.  With exhibition birds, especially females, you need them to keep conditioning up, putting on mass, and producing the wealth of feather that (especially the orpingtons) heavy soft feather breeds are noted for.  This means that you preferably don't want the pullets laying this year

2) Faverolles have a fifth toe (which I'm sure you have noticed ) keep an eye on the fifth toe nail, to make sure it doesn't grow too long, or curl over to cut into the leg.

Lacing in orpingtons isn't in the breed standard yet, so expect a bit of irregularity / non-homogenity in the quality of the lacing.

Chocolate isn't in the bred standard - at least for the LF - so your birds may not grow to have the same mass or floof as, say a buff.

Exhibition orpingotns are fairly notorious for being poor layers, both in number and in the size of the egg compared to the bird - expect about 120- 180 eggs per year.

Large breeds such as the Orpington and Faverolles may need to have a few modifications to the coop... such as, having the roosting bars a bit nearer the ground, having a larger pop hole, if you have a raised coop, then it shouldn't be any higher than about 18" off the ground (jumping from a height can seriously damage a heavy breeds legs/joints - especially in mature birds.)  Also, they may need a bit more space than the 12" of roosting space normally mentioned.

I love the large breeds, though exhibition lines are usually more garden ornaments than egg layers, and currently have 4 brahmas just two weeks old myself - after my three exhibition girls were taken.

[GrannieAnnie]

Sorry you feel that way Stree, when we are only concerned for the welfare of young chicks.  It was just the way you happened to mention that they were in a greenhouse!

My first flock of day olds was much larger than intended.  I ordered 125 and ended up with 300 because Brian and I hated the idea of them being gassed.  Because of this and when some of them started to feather peck, they ended up in the greenhouse because we thought it would be nice and warm during the day, and kept warm at night with the heat lamp, but it didn't end up like that, and we could have lost a lot of them! (I've learnt a lot since then!)

And of course you must listen to your breeder, but you did ask for our opinions, but as Casey said, you didn't ask for our hints and tips on rearing them, it was more like a statement telling us you'd got them.

Hope they turn into fine birds for you.  Are they all hens?

[Stree]

First apologies for being rude,
Secondly thanks for your thoughtful and considered answers.
Annie, regarding the greenhouse, its actually a lean to against my workshop ( as mentioned for the nightime heat from the stove there) and has a door into the workshop which is great for cooling and ventilation if it gets too warm in the sun. Nothing tender growing in the greenhouse yet so no seedlings the worry about with dafts and so on.
Seems the chicks are older than I thought. ( I am not a good judge of these things!)
More like a month and two months old respectively.
Got a huge bag of growers pellets and a half sack of chick growing mash from the breeder for £10, he gets it in bulk and sells it cheap, which is handy.
I will not be showing or exhibiting the birds, more pets than anything, so even reduced egg production is a bonus..... Their is a black orpington cock We got for free with the 3 chocolate orpington hens,  so we couls breed some more. Seems its easy to sex them this way, hens will be brown cocks black.
So we will have 8 hens here, plus 2 black pekin hens, plus Tallulah, a white Amberlink hen
 we got from Grannie Annie a couple of years ago........So between them we should get plenty of eggs for a household of four!

[GrannieAnnie]

So you've still got one of ours then!!  She's getting on now!  

Don't think I'm doubting you Stree, but are you sure that particular cross is the right way round?  Generally the hens take their colouring from their Dad's.

So check with the breeder, wouldn't like you getting rid of the wrong sex if you do decide to breed with them!

[Stree]

Thats what he said, even repeated it. Something to do with recessive genes etc.......
Black like the cock = cocks, brown = hens like the mothers......
I could check again next time I see him though.

[GrannieAnnie]

Just give us pics of the babies!!! (when you get them! lol)

[Casey76]

Chocolate genetics are a bit complicated, like lavender.

First of all, you have to know if the cockerel is "black" or "split" (i.e. heterozygous for chocolate). 

If the cockerel is pure black, then any chicks from black x choc = 100% split chicks which all look (are phenotypically) black

If the cockerel is "split" then any chicks from split x chocolate = 50% pullets (look/are chocolate), 50% cockerels (split = look black)

Can you post some pics of your chicks?  By two months the chicks should be completely feathered, and ready to go outside daytimes (it is still a little chilly at night - or at least it is here!).  By one month, I would expect that the chicks are almost completely feathered, with only patches of down left.

If you post pics, we could all have a guess as to how old they are

If you're not going to show your birds, then they can stay on a normal grower pellet until they have laid their first egg, then you can change over to layers.  If they are all being kept in the same run/not separated then as soon as the first pullet lays you can change them all over.  I'd guess that the Sussex will lay first

[trinamc]

Hi  I have 4 buff orpinton hens 2 buff cockerels, 1 buffx RIR hen 2 buff x RIR cockerels, 3 gold lace orpintons that are 5 weeks old. In the inci I have 6 black orpingtons and 6 gold lace orpingtons.

As you can see I love the breed they are great birds the ones that are laying lay 6 out of 7 days, they are very easy to handle and because they are so big there is not much chance of them getting over a 6 ft fence.

Good luck with your little ones and let us know how you get on with them pics would be great.

[Debz]

Please can I see pictures of them?