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Hi, Ellendra,

Ok, these 2 Leghorns just seem to be big (and REALLY fast growing) clods, as opposed to actually aggressive. They seem to want to perch, too (already getting up on the ~ 9” tall feeder!), so I’ll see if I can provide something, which may help keep them “off” the smaller chicks. The tote functioning as a brooder is pretty big (and bigger floor area than the one we used a few times for 6 chicks), but, it is not “gigantic”.

I wonder where one can find info. on growth rates of chicks of different breeds?

I went to recheck the eggs under the hen in our smaller hen house: She’s off the eggs now, they are cold (well “cool”), and in candling them, one is completely clear except the membrane that divides off the air sac, and 4 are totally black. I can’t even see an air sac, and I’m using a pretty darn bright tight beam flashlight. I’ve never seen any so totally black / opaque, but, I’m thinking that means they are dead and full of mold or bacteria, right?

The chick in the hen house had to be rescued from it’s egg, BTW. I know that’s not recommended, but the shell was collapsed in many spots which seemed to leave the membrane too resilient to get through, and the chick was drying out (and had taken up the rest of the egg contents), so I VERY carefully gradually removed bits of shell, and, voila, the chick survived and seems to be doing well.

Something very interesting too was that initially “Mom” just had some standard scratch grain feed in there, but once the chick was out and exploring a bit I added chick starter. The Hen IMMEDIATELY hopped over to it, calling the chick and demonstrating “eat this!”. I marveled at this: How does the hen know that chick starter is better for the chick than std. feed?

Now my next job is to move the hen and chick into the downstairs part off that henhouse and screen off the other chickens, as it looks like temps will be 93 deg. F or more the next couple days, and the “upstairs” part of the henhouse can run 10 deg. above outside temps. on a hot sunny day.