Breast Milk for Chicks?

Well not exactly, but yolk is what the chicks eat inside the egg as they are developing embryos. So I was thinking wouldn't cooked egg yolk fed to chicks now help give a natural boost to their immune system as well as be a completely organic unaltered nutritious snack for them? Infant mammals thrive on breast milk and it is essential to developing babies health and immune systems. After doing a little research, it seems that I am not the only person to think along these lines. So after cleaning up some eggs for the fridge, I decided to boil up a treat for the chicks. I hard boiled a dozen eggs and took out all the yolks [the pigs and chickens enjoyed the shells and whites]. I then crumbled up about half a yolk on a plate and set it into the brooders. The blue laced red wyandottes, welsummer, silver laced wyandottes, and speckled sussex went crazy! They immediately devoured it all, chasing each other around in a game of 'chicken football' as I like to call it. The blue silkies and guineas were a bit slower to respond, but seem to be enjoying them as well! Once the plates were empty, I removed them and watched the little ones chirping away happily. I will take notes to see if there are any issues with it, but I think I just found a great snack that will help out the wee ones.

Blue Laced Red Wyandottes and Blue Silkies Day 5 on the Homestead

Just a few pics of the the chicks on their 5th day here. They have been doing extremely well! We did lose one of the Silkies, not sure what happened. My wife found it one morning when we woke up. They all seem healthy and happy though. Here are the pics:

Keets and Chicks! Order 2

Our keets and chicks arrived on Friday mornings. This order came from Cackle Hatchery. My wife had to go retrieve them from the post office in the morning. The keets were a running bustle of tiny bodies! This is our first time with Guineas so we are very excited to enter into their little world. The hatchery was running a special on straight run hatcheries choice keets so we signed up and are quite impressed with the variety that has arrived. There are several of each including White Africans, Pearl Grays, Lavenders, and Royal Purples. I believe they will be quite a beautiful flock! [And my wife loves the color purple!] They are definitely a joy to watch, though they seem so delicate compared to the chicks. We did lose two so far for no explainable reason, but there was two extra. From what I have read this is not abnormal, due to their size and excitability. Here are some pics:

Our other chicks also arrived. They are Welsummer, Speckled Sussex, and Silver Laced Wyandottes. Unfortunately they were unable to add our Black Australorpes with this order so they will be arrived at a later time. They all are very healthy and active as well. I believe they are a bit older than 'day-old' because they seem larger and are showing feathers just like our chicks that arrived earlier in the week. Most likely they had to wait to be shipped to join the keets is what I am thinking. They are very beautiful chicks though, with very impressive colorings. Here they are:

Poultry Order #1 Arrived

Our first order of chicks arrived today. These chicks were ordered from Murray McMurray Hatchery and arrived very quickly. We were notified that they shipped at 17:00 yesterday, and this morning they were at our post office. The Postman made a special trip to deliver them to the house. This order was our Blue Laced Red Wyandottes and Blue Silkie Bantams. When my wife opened the box one of the bantams had expired. The Hatchery included an extra of each though, so we are still up one. The little guy was buried in a peaceful spot in the forest. Everyone else seems to be doing extremely well and are very active. All have taken to the water and are pecking at feed in their new warm homes. We are keeping the two in separate  containers, as they will serve different purposes and not be part of the same flock. Included with our order was the option to have a free rare exotic chick included with the order. Of course we opted to do so. It will be a quite interesting experience attempting to identify the wee one! We have already made a guess, but will have to wait and see what he/she grows into as no one honestly knows which rare chick is included.

Blue Laced Red Wyandottes:

 Blue Silkie Bantams

The Rare Exotic Chick is the one on the right with the Gold face mask.