Chicks a Day On…

Boy do these blighters grow quickly! The images below are of them all ready in their incubators for the big world. The Light Sussex and Derbyshire Redcaps are on the left in the Polyhatch, the bantams are in the three images on the right, in their Octagon.

We’ve a 4ft plastic field trough set up inside, with newspaper and a towel inside for them to walk on (the friction of the towel helps prevent them from getting spraddle leg – a deformity caused by not enough traction on the ground in their early years. The heatlamp is attached to my camera tripod, which means we can adjust it up and down by winding the handle on the tripod – we have around a foot of vertical travel if needed. We just raise it to the point that when they all sleep they form a neat circle equidistant from the center of the trough to the outside edge of the trough. That way they’re neither too hot or too cold. Then we have a chick drinker and feeder – better than open saucers as they’re less likely to mess in them. Also some sand mixed with standard poultry grit – they love the smaller pieces and just play with the pieces too large to swallow!

They really are gorgeous, and we’ve all found ourselves mesmerised by them, eschewing every other form of entertainment for the chance to sit and watch them. The Derbyshire Redcap in my hand is the chick with the three stripes on its back and a black blob on the back of its head. The Light Sussex is the archetypal yellow fluffy chick, although you can see a size difference already!