Brahma Chicken Flock Update

brahma hen with chicks
Mama hen and her four chicks are doing well. I've said this over and over, but they are so darn cute and fun to watch! They now spend most of the day out in the paddock scratching for food.

injured brahma chick

Chick number five hatched last, after Blackie was already established with her four chicks. I didn't have accommodations for two hens to raise chicks so I consulted with our workers what to do. They advised me to put chick #5 underneath mama Blackie at night. I did that and thought all was well.

The next morning I noticed chick 5 was frantically tweeting but unable to move. Then I saw Blackie peck at her and her chicks did the same. I went inside the coop and saw that chick 5 was missing a beak size portion of its scalp. I thought it would die so I put it in a box and let it be. I went back several hours later to see the chick was upright and not dead. I felt horrible for putting the chick in harms way so I figured I had to try to save it. It has been one week since the accident and chick 5 is doing really great in her (I don't know the gender) own cage. I'm hopeful one day I'll be able to reintroduce her into the flock.

Below are two short videos I took yesterday.