The naturals have been quite unsuccessful. I left them to sort their own mates out. 4 pairs paired quite quickly. I got one youngster from 1 pair. Their other egg didn’t hatch. 2 pairs broke their eggs and 1 pair I decided to give pot eggs. So only have 1 youngster from these. These are still together at present and I do have 3 pairs on eggs that I will probably keep.
The widowhood’s which were all selected pairs were much better. The hens all laid over a 8 day spell apart from 1 hen who laid a few days later so was given pot eggs. Of the 20 eggs laid 19 hatched. All was going well. After about a week of the first ones hatching they started drinking a lot of water. I was putting fresh grit in every day that they were clearing up very quickly. Don’t know whether this was making them thirsty. At the same time I had also opened a new couple of bags of corn. The effect of the birds drinking so much water was that the droppings became very watery both in the old birds and the youngsters. The loft was getting in a right mess and I was cleaning out the loft and nest boxes twice a day. I found 1 baby dead outside the nest bowl at a couple of days old. Don’t know whether it fell out or was turfed out as the parents know it wasn’t right. I had one of the first pair of youngsters die at around 10 days old. I then had another 3 die a couple of days later. 1 I was surprised about but the other 2 were both the smaller ones in a pair. I was worried with the state of the droppings that I was going to lose a lot. But after these initial losses I didn’t lose anymore. The strange thing was that although the droppings were very watery the youngsters weren’t thin and they were quite feisty. They were feeding from the food pots themselves from around 14 days old. The odd old bird did suffer a little bit with dirty feathers from the wet droppings, but didn’t look like they sometimes do if wet feeding.
I was planning on removing the hens when the youngsters were around 14 days and leaving them with the cocks until 21 days old. But because of the state of things I decided to leave the hens in but watched to make sure none were looking to go back down on eggs. None did. So when the youngsters were 21 days old I weaned them along with their dams. They have been put together in the young bird section. The youngsters are feeding themselves and also getting topped up by the hens. I did get rid of 1 youngster that wasn’t doing so well. So now all weaned I have 14 youngsters. The widowhood’s will be re paired at the end of March and allowed to sit for 10 days before being removed into their own section when the cocks will be on widowhood.
The droppings in the cocks are still rather watery but there are some down feathers in the loft and I am letting them out every morning. 3 of them don’t do much but the other 8 are flying well. So I have a month now to get them right before re pairing.
Looking at the youngsters weaned at 21 days they have no feathers under their wings which I know some members like to see. They are different birds though a week later.
These are a few photos of the youngsters in with the hens.
