little ones

We have wanted Jersey Giants from the start of our chicken keeping...

 

a few weeks ago hubby sent the guys and I to get layer feed thinking it was safe as they haven't had any chicks for awhile now...
well he would have been right if someone hadn't placed a special order that the owner added a few extra to just in case..
         we were at the right place at the right time :D





meet our new pullets :D







Just before this happened two of our hens went broody
our game hen and one of our production reds
after fighting them for a few days I gave up thinking they would give up themselves as they have before
not this time...the game hen was clearly stealing eggs from some of the other hens.. we found brown and green eggs under her ....still not sure how she pulled that off....lol

After a few days with less eggs in the other nesting area we went looking under the red...some of the other reds were laying along side of her and she just took care of them....we found 41 eggs in the nest with her...we pulled 31 and marked the ones we left thinking we could tell the new ones from the old...all the other eggs we placed in the incubator...I couldn't just leave them to die..it worked for a few days...but the markings came off...at about this time we found a chick by the game hen...she wanted nothing to do with it...into another brooder area for it as it was too small to go in with the others...the next day one hatched in the incubator...cool it wasn't alone.. such a sweetie needed a friend...while we were working inside with that one another was hatched in the coop...well almost hatched...the game hen sat on it poor little guy...at this point I got tired of not getting any eggs to eat ( what can I say I'm hooked ) we pulled all of the eggs under both of them...the red had managed to get another 20 or so eggs under her.. plus the 10 we left...
We removed the rooster weeks before this as he was getting really ugly...thinking it was a pure waste of eggs we wanted it over with....not knowing what ones were old or new coupled with being out of time and no batteries for the flashlight we just put all of them in the incubator.....without candling them

these 2 hatched earlier today  

 

these two are now out of the shell drying

 

 

 

soon to be put in by these guys

so far we have 16 not counting the two who didn't make it out of the shell....with more peeping going on...they are so cute and sweet even though daddy was mean. They look like him he was an australorp although some have red around their combs....