The Babies Survived Another Night
Let's drink, baby birds are thirsty after a night under the brooder heater
Mary shot video of the morning wakeup. It was already after 7 AM and the tiny birds were ready to come out and greet the world.
MORNING PHOTOS
I love taking morning photos, it is amazing to see their wing growth over night.
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| Look at the fluff on Lemmons feet, he's gonna be fancy |
CLEAN BROODER BOX
We put the eight little chicks into a box Mary has titled "Chicken SUV". It's a nice size box for their food and water dishes plus our screen fits over the top perfectly to keep them from having a flying accident.
After we had the babies safe and secure we took their box out to Mary's Food Forest and dumped it out. We had a spare plastic tray we put in the brooder box, then added a fresh load of pine-chips. The little birds were a little alarmed by their out-of-brooder experience but they quickly got back with the swing of things after they got into their freshly cleaned home.
The fresh pine chips smell good to all of us :-)
AFTERNOON ENRICHMENT AND BONDING TIME
At around 2:30 PM we began bonding time with the baby birds. They are not very happy about this but there were some surprises.
Trouble, who is our dominant male, was a bit difficult to catch because he is very fast on his feet. My technique is a hand in front to catch them and the other hand follows from behind. Trouble acted scared and peeped a lot but after a few minutes of pets and gentle talk he totally calmed down and began to go to sleep in my lap. Mary watched as Trouble lowered his head and closed his eyes. It takes a relaxed bird to do this.
I made a point to pet the birds and control them just like the "Crazy Chicken Lady" instructed on YouTube, I became the rooster.
Skunk may have put up the biggest fight when I was trying to catch him, he's very small and fast. My hand in front and hand in back do the trick every time. It's actually the same technique used for catching an Anole or Gekko lizard, get their attention in front and catch them from behind.
TREATS
After bonding time was over I hand fed them dried mealworms. This is always a fun game, everybody got some. Oddball got the most but he drops them or gives them to Trouble and Lemmon, both of whom run with the worm sticking out of their mouth to show off to the others.
FIGHTS AND FRIENDS
All day the little birds jump on each others heads, crash into each other while experimenting with flying, steal each others treats, squeal with surprise, and at the end of the day they all get under the Mama Hen brooder heater and lay together peacefully. Eight little clumps of super soft fluff, snoozing. In fact they'd be upset if they were not together. They've been making this journey together and while sometimes they disagree about things they really depend on each other.
