I’ve decided to write a series of articles to introduce you to all my feathered friends that cheer me up everyday ! I won’t be able to talk about all of them because there’re so many of them ! They all have a unique personality and their own habits that make each one of them so special. 🙂

I just want to share my daily moments of joy !!

Here’s a portrait of N’DJILI…

N’Djili, splash brahma chick

It’s the unique story of a very large egg…containing two egg yolks, potentially two twin embryos…

The incubation of this egg (identified as “Snowy6 large”) started on the 7th of April 2017…It weighs 87,6g and nearly takes up two spaces in the incubator ! Last year the twins didn’t go to full term…we might be more lucky this year !

Five days later, the verdict comes : There’s at least one embryo in our big egg ! Impossible to see another one. Everything goes well after that until the hatching day comes…The chick pips (pecks a hole in it’s shell) and then nothing…It’s alive but isn’t doing anything to get out of there…

After 24h we decide to intervene because something wasn’t right…You can see how it ends on video, we didn’t forget to turn it on, enjoy !

https://youtu.be/AJj7fAKlAus

After their down is all dried up, we always check our chicks before putting them in the brooder to make sure everything is ok. Our large chick seems to have a problem with it’s toes on it’s right foot. Sometimes after 36-48H, this type of problem resolves itself on it’s own but sometimes it becomes even more important.

When things don’t improve on their own, you have to make a small splint or just a bandage to keep the toe in a correct angle. The baby chick can lean on it’s foot properly and is able to stand upright.

After 10 days, the bandages can be removed and you can check wether or not you have to intervene again.

By the way…what is N’Diji ?

It’s an town situated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

After have sent some fertilized eggs to that country I wanted to find a local name to remember it by…

N’Djili’s genes

Our large chick comes from the Brahma Splash n°1 family.

His Daddy is Cadok and his Mommy is miss Snowy, two splash brahmas. The chick will inevitably be splash too even though it’s down is dark grey in the video. 🙂

Pictures of N’Djili

To finish this portrait, I tried to film N’Djili…not very cooperative !!! After many attempts here’s the best one !! 🙂

It’s not really the chick’s fault, a chick is meant to run around with it’s friends, not be in front of the camera !!

 

 

 

 

We’ll be back soon with another Chicken Family portrait 🙂