Chickens.org

Newest member of the flock!

‼️SOS‼️

⚠️ Day old chick mom rejected and no power to set up brooder long term. ⚠️

The story:
My silkies had three eggs incubating this month. I was away on a trip and they weren’t collected under some broody hens. I have the space, so I let them incubate their babies. Two different hatch days (because one two babies weren’t enough).

Two of them hatched last Friday…the day we were hit by Hurricane Helene. One baby was trampled in the coop. One didn’t hatch. I had three broody hens and tried to move one to the brooder last Wednesday or Thursday and broke her broodyness in the process, so I let them hatch in the coop. Obviously a mistake.

We had our third and final egg hatch today. We have been without power and running water since Friday. We have a generator we have been running for a few hours a day and that’s it to conserve gas, which has been scarce in my area of SC.
I didn’t want baby to be trampled by the flock again, so I moved mom and baby to an outdoor brooder I had set up for them. This is the flightiest bunch of chickens I have ever had, and mom got spooked and rejected baby. I gave them about 2 hours while I ran into town to get dinner. When I got back, I immediately checked on them. Mom was not sitting on baby and baby was cold. I tried to put the chick under mom (shielding her from the angry pecking) and mom wasn’t having it. I turned on my generator and brought baby inside under a heat lamp.

What do I do from here? Hot water bottles? I don’t know when my power will be back on and we are trying to conserve gas. We could get power tomorrow, but they have been saying the earliest to expect is Oct. 7th. I just need to keep this baby alive until we have power and need to know the best way to do that.

Should I try sneaking her under mom later tonight?

If anyone has experience, I will take all advice! Thank you in advance.

Leaving town before a harvest is always nerve-wracking…but my dad just sent a photo of tomatoes he picked this morning from my garden! Check these beauties out. 👀

-Molly

Such a great visual!

These samples belong to the same soil type and have been in corn-bean rotation for over 20 years, but their treatment was very different!!!.

The land on the left has not been plowed or fertilized with anhydrous ammonia for more than 20 years and has benefited from a rye cover crop.

The land on the right was plowed annually and fertilized with anhydrous ammonia in the fall.

This photo was taken about 2 minutes after the samples were immersed in water.

The plowed land practically “exploded” as soon as it hit the water. Repeated plowing of the soil has destroyed its structure, removing interstitial space and the biological “glue” that helps hold the soil together, leading to its disintegration.

In contrast, with minimal soil disturbance, the no-tilled soil had excellent porosity and high biological activity, giving it a healthy structure that could withstand water shock.

In less than five minutes, the plowed land disappeared completely, while the unplowed land remained almost intact.

We wanted to see how long it would last and continued adding water (to compensate for evaporation) for several weeks.

We stopped after 6 weeks, during which time the no-till soil sample was still 95% intact.

Credit: Daily Factfinder

Can you spot the new layer egg? 🥚

Today’s harvest. 🥬🍑

Check out this guy’s fabulous comb! Honestly, we are not sure what to even call it…too many spikes up the center to be a buttercup comb. The closest we can find is maybe a triple comb, which is very rare!

We had a lovely farm visit Saturday in Batesburg, SC. The farmer could countdown to when this boy would crow. Talk about being in tune with your chickens!

Cades Cove Cantilever Barn
“When those hated tax men finally made his way up to Cades Cove and started pokin’ around and assessing property tax on the folks who lived there, they quickly realized that it was the footprint square footage that determined the tax rate on each building. Well, the w***y mountaineers quickly changed the design of their sheds incorporating a smaller footprint with a larger overhang, and just like that, they cut the property taxes on the building in half and the Cantilever Barn was born. At one time, there were nearly 200 of these barns in Sevier and Blount Counties. The barn had additional benefits such as allowing for storage for tools and even provided a place to get out of the rain for the smarter cows.” -Squire Elroy

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mammas out there!

We hope your family gifted you lots of chickens to show you how special you are. 😉