Today I made the (intentional) mistake of going to Tractor Supply
when I knew they had a new shipment of baby chicks....
After pleading with Matt and lots of hugs and kisses...
I came home with 9 new babies!!
(3 pullets: 2 Rhode Island Reds & 1 White Leghorn
6 assorted bantams: 1 Red, 1 White & 3 Barred Cochins; 1 unknown bantam breed)
Baby Leia (the tiniest chick)
Maya
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Lucy Goosey
(Simon's chick- still un-named)
Freckles
Angel
not pictured: Penny
I admit, I was caught up in the moment....
I already have 25 chicks at home in the brooder,
but they were soooooooo adorable and tiny!
but they were soooooooo adorable and tiny!
I couldn't resist grabbing a few more**
_________________________________________________
**Chicken Math-
The original chicken math started like this:
Amongst the old time poultry breeders the rule of thumb was that you set five eggs for every pullet you wanted to lay. An 80% hatch rate was considered acceptable so take one egg away from the five. Now you're gonna get half roosters on average in every hatch so take away two more eggs. Now you're left with just two eggs to produce your pullets from. But it takes at least twenty weeks to get a pullet to point of lay and one may die somewhere along the way so now you're down to just that one egg.
If you want twenty hens in your flock you have to set at least 100 eggs!
Over the decades things have gone sort of haywire from there, but that's chicken math for you.
Amongst the old time poultry breeders the rule of thumb was that you set five eggs for every pullet you wanted to lay. An 80% hatch rate was considered acceptable so take one egg away from the five. Now you're gonna get half roosters on average in every hatch so take away two more eggs. Now you're left with just two eggs to produce your pullets from. But it takes at least twenty weeks to get a pullet to point of lay and one may die somewhere along the way so now you're down to just that one egg.
If you want twenty hens in your flock you have to set at least 100 eggs!
Over the decades things have gone sort of haywire from there, but that's chicken math for you.
Borrowed from the Backyard Chickens website
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