I aquired free chicks

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I just aquired about 50 chicks approximately one week old. They're all yellow and are growing white wing tips. One has a black patch on the back of its neck just above its shoulders. The person that gave them to me doesn't know what kind they are, and the person that gave him the chicks didn't know what kind they were either. The only thing they knew was that they were free chicks to be raised and showed at the Ft. Smith, Ark. state fair. Does anybody out there have any ideal who might have donated these and what type of chicken they are? Also they have a yellow metal band that is clipped into the wing of some of the chicks. Should I remove these bands? I noticed that they were clipped through the skin and not around the wing as I had thought earlier. I'm hoping that they are some kind of a meat bird as I already have about 14 laying hens about one year old and another 18 layers that should start laying in another month or two.

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), August 08, 2001

Answers

They may be chicks hatched in elementary school classes. They usually get given away. I would guess they are leghorns, but I don't know about the black patch.

-- Elizabeth (Lividia66@aol.com), August 08, 2001.

The only thing you can tell at this point is that they will most likely be white or white w/a bit of color. You'll have to wait until they get a bit older to guess at they by body shape and other features. The metal bands sound like wing bands. Are they in the wing web and have a number on them. If they are wing bands, I'd just leave them alone. They don't hurt the birds and offer a means of identifying the individuals.

-- Trisha-MN (tank@linkup.net), August 08, 2001.

Well, if they grow *real* fast on a 24% protein feed, good guess is Cornish X, an excellent meat bird (same variety in the stores). WE had 10 this year, and we've eaten most of them already,as they are *great* tasting :)

I'm gonna mail you a pic of our Cornish at about 2 weeks to compare to. (Just warning you you'll be getting a .jpg attachment on taht mail, not a virus, lol)

-- Brendan K Callahan (Grinnell, IA) (sleeping@iowatelecom.net), August 08, 2001.


Thanks Brendon, I'll keep those pictures around for a few weeks to compare with. I appreciate it very much.

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), August 08, 2001.

Scroll down to the Table Of Contents. Click 'baby chicks' or 'chickens.' On the 'chickens' list, the chicks are at the bottom of each page.

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), August 09, 2001.



i had free chicks given to me also we hatched them in our school for a science project. well any way the grew up and they were idenified as english leghorns and the rooster can be very mean so i killed the roosters then i was giving a rhode island red that was a lot nicer and i bred the leghorn and the red and the peeps turned out yellow with black spotting the nieghboors dogs killed them before i could see them fully grown sorry

-- drew (ata1hunt@aol.com), August 20, 2001.

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