Photos from the Farm #10

Wow! You've been visiting for ten weeks! Welcome back!

What have you enjoyed the most?

Here is this week's photo of the new chicks.
They don't look very different from last week, do they?
Did you notice that there are three dark chicks and one yellow chick?

One of the funny things about mother hens is that they will sit on any eggs in the nest. It doesn't matter which hen laid the egg. Hens come sit on the nest, lay an egg, then leave. Usually only one hen sits on the nest and hatches the eggs.

It takes about 21 days for chicken eggs to hatch. Twenty-one days is three weeks. I'm sure your teacher will show you what that looks like on a calendar if you want to see what it looks like.

Thanksgiving is 20 days from Friday!

Here are the chicks you have been watching grow up since school started. 
They are about 10 weeks old. I've put a number by each chick so you can try the next activity.

Look at the chicks in the photo above and try to remember what they look like. Only one hen hatched them out, but that mother hen didn't lay all the eggs.

Try to decide which of the hens laid the egg that the chick hatched from. I'll post the answers after each picture.

This is Charlie, our Buff Cochin rooster. He's the dad of all the chicks. Charlie is a little bit fluffy. That is why all the chicks look a little bit fluffy, too. Charlie's parents and grandparents all looked like Charlie.

This hen is an Ameraucana. Both her parents and grandparents looked like she does.
Are there chicks that look like her?

Chick 4 came from an egg laid by an Ameraucana. She looks a little fluffy like Charlie, and she has a dark tail like her mother.

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This is an Arucana. Both her parents and grandparents looked like she does. Are there chicks that look like her?

No chicks look like our Arucana hen. She didn't lay any eggs in the mother hen's nest.

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This is a Barred Rock. Both her parents and her grandparents looked like she does.
Are there chicks that look like her?

Chicks 1 and 2 came from eggs laid by a Barred Rock hen. They are a little bit fluffy like Charlie, and they are black and white like their mother.

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This is a Buff Cochin. Both her parents and grandparents looked like she does.
Charlie, the rooster, is a Buff Cochin, too! Are there chicks that look like her?

Chicks 3 and 5 came from eggs laid by a Buff Cochin hen. They will look just like the hen that laid the egg and Charlie, the rooster. They will be a golden color and they will be fluffy. Do you see the hen's legs? They have feathers near her feet so she looks fluffy.

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This hen is a mixed breed hen. She doesn't look much like her parents. Her grandparents looked different from each other, too. Everyone in this chicken's family looked very different from each other so this hen doesn't look like any other chicken I have ever seen!
Do any chicks look like her?

None of the chicks look like our mixed breed hen. She isn't old enough to lay eggs yet so she didn't lay any eggs in the mother hen's nest.

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This is a Silkie. Most Silkies are a little fluffier.
Her parents and grandparents must have had smooth feathers instead of fluffy feathers.
Do you see any chicks that look like her? Are there any grey chicks?

None of the chicks look like our Silkie hen. That means she didn't lay any eggs in the nest.

Remember, the mother hen you see near the chicks is the one that hatched the eggs and raised the chicks, but she isn't the one that laid the eggs.

Did you make good guesses?

We have to wait a few more weeks to see which of the chicks are roosters (boys) and which are hens (girls).  We will find a new home for the roosters because we only want one rooster on our farm. The hens can live here and lay eggs for our family.

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Here's a very short video of our turkeys gobbling. Your teacher told me you never heard a real turkey before! What do you think of the sound they make?

This is what they look like when they eat their breakfast. They look hungry!

Next week I'll show you pictures of the new animals we have on the farm. We don't usually get new animals this close to winter. This year we have new chicks, a new steer, and ....

I won't spoil the surprise. You can come back and see the new animals next week. I'll give you three hints:

• there are two 
• they are black and white
• they do not drink from a bottle.

That's all for this week.