Sticky Fleas & Pasty Butts...

I arrived in December to one of our chickens sitting on four eggs. It was a great homecoming. Within days all three of our hens were sitting on eggs and at times fighting over whose eggs were whose. After a couple of weeks we had right around 20 eggs!

Eventually we would like to get to the place where we are producing eggs to eat but for the time being we are trying to grow our flock so that we have more egg layers. But this hasn’t been as easy as it might sound.

In 2015, we didn’t have one chick live past 2 weeks.

When I saw the eggs, I knew I would personally be giving the eggs and these ladies a lot of attention. I made sure the hens had food and water while they were spending day and night in the coop sitting on eggs.

The day I went in and saw a broken egg my heart sank a little, until I realized the egg had hatched! Each day I would go out and there would be another cracked shell, I would clear it out and try to sneak a peek at the chicks but they remained cozy under their mommas.

One of my first glimpses at the chicks!

One morning I brought out our veggie scraps and as soon as the food hit the floor all the birds got up and I got my first glance at the chicks. I told Nunu I could easily put a chair in the chicken coop and just watch the birds all day.

One hen must have gotten a week or so head start on the other two, because we did have lull in hatchings. As the second round of eggs started hatching the first few were off to a good start but with in a few days I kept finding dead baby chicks! I wasn’t sure what it meant.

I read online about causes of death for chicks and one thing it mentioned was “pasty butt.” Basically it means their poop gets stuck in their feathers and so then it backs up… something along those lines, remember this is all new to me. So I went out with my paper towels and warm water to check their little butts, I had also noticed that one of the baby had been pooped on by an adult and so it’s whole back was poop, the little guy wasn’t looking like he would live. For the poopy back I sort of made a wet paper towel blanket and just let him sleep under it while I looked at the other.

I picked them up and on two of them I found a little bit of crusty something… so I began slowly rubbing with the warm water and paper towel. It was so funny, when I would pick up the chicks they made a bunch of noise in protest but as soon as I started rubbing they would close their eyes and completely relax in my hand.

The poop was a lot harder to get off then I imagine, as the water spread, I noticed something weird… another opening? After a quick search online, I realized I was trying to clean off their belly buttons. =) Not one pasty butt in the bunch! I was able to get a good amount of poop off the back of the other bird but left some as it was really on him. So I was still confused how these babies kept dying!

I went into the chicken coop another day and discovered what I thought was a dying chick under the feed tray. I put him in the nesting area and moved another dazed little guy over with him. I realized later in the day that the chick wasn’t dying, he had actually just been born! 

New born under feeding tray!

Same new born. 

First picture with a chick =) 

Shortly after we realized that the hen whose eggs hatched first was actually pecking the other babies and because they were so little she was killing them. By this time we were down to 8 chicks: 4 of the head hen’s chicks and 4 chicks who were less than a week old. We did lose a couple of eggs, but this hen was taking out the babies left and right. So completely unsure of what to do, I moved the chicks out of the coop and into a bucket of their own. The yellow chick in particular may have already been pecked some, as it was very dazed and not very active on it’s last day in the chicken coop.

Unsure of what to think about their new bucket home.

The next day the yellow chick seemed a little better but it was obvious that the bucket didn’t offer much space. I was at a friends house and they had just purchased a generator and the box was on their porch, one look at the box and I asked if I could have it.

Bucket chicks, doing well and eating out of my hand. 

Bucket chicks in their new box home with
window screen as a top.

Almost 2 weeks later the chicks are still in the box and they are doing really well. I did read online that we shouldn’t bring them back into the flock until they can fend for themselves and even then it should be a gradual introduction. So we might have to build another enclosure or something.

Another sad confirmation that we did the right thing is that one of the bigger chicks died from stick-tight fleas. They are fleas that are so hard to remove, even with tweezers. In the states they have something you use to repel them but I can’t find it here. When I showed Bounassa he said you put petroleum on them. While I hate that idea with every ounce of my being, I could tell the bird was going to die and petroleum was the only chance to save it. We were too late.

See the brown around her eye? Those are
stick-tight fleas. 

The bucket chicks have no stick-tight fleas, which is good because the smaller the bird the more likely they are to die from the fleas. So says the internet. =)

This week I went out the feed the chicks and was happily surprised to find another egg!! I was hoping we would be able to build some nice nesting boxes for the hens but we just haven’t had the time yet. But we were able to find another box and build something temporary! Now they can stay at the Super Star Inn, or so says the box!

 

The eggs pictured above, I put into the box and today
I found a third egg! Yay, the ladies get the point!!

Current Chicken Count:

Roosters: 2

Hens: 3

Chicks: 7

Eggs: 3