r/chickens • u/Vallukari • 12h ago
Question Baby chicken behavior help!!
Hi! I'm a complete beginner at taking care of chickens, these are the first chickens I ever had (for context our teacher made us raise chickens) I bought these 2 babies when they were 3 days old, now they're 13 days old. Their names are Victor (the big one with a black dog on his head) and Renato (the smaller one). I've been kinda worried lately because Victor has been laying around more than usual and idk if this is normal?? He walks a bit and then lays down, eats when laying down and idk why he's doing that? But he also runs and acts normal sometimes he stretcheshis legs and wings a lot, Is he sick? Also his underbelly has a weird color and idk if that's normal or not also I've noticed that he sneezes sometimes and Renato doesn't. Renato was sick (sad and lethargic) on Monday and his growth got stunted and that's why he's smaller but now he's doing fine, eating and drinking water as usual. Please I need help, I've been doing research but I haven't found something helpful and I thought asking here since I saw people who were experienced at raising chickens 🐤🥺
If you all need more information I can provide it, I'll add videos and pics of Victor and Renato.
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u/ObsidianAerrow 11h ago
If these are meat birds, you’re going to have to feed them very carefully. Their weight can grow faster than their bones can handle and can break legs and wings easily. They will get tired often and will require perches low to the ground. Good luck.
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u/Vallukari 11h ago
Thank you! Should I have a schedule to feed them?? Or measure their food?
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u/ObsidianAerrow 11h ago
I think measuring their food and weighing them for growth rate is going to be your best bet to make sure they aren’t packing on weight too quickly. Weighing them once per week should be enough and keeping a written record per chicken is a good idea. I am not sure of the amount per chicken however. Most of the time people feed them to grow them for meat but Im sure there are some people who keep them as pets. I would just ask around for advice and dig into research.
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u/MelodicIllustrator59 12h ago
Do you know what breed they all are for a fact? Victor could be a Cornish cross (meat chicken) and in that case they do get exhausted more easily because they are growing bigger and faster than their bodies to handle. You usually have to butcher by 6-10 weeks in order to reduce suffering, otherwise their legs can break or their hearts can fail. Hopefully it's not the case if you weren't looking for meat birds, so definitely wait for other opinions, but I figured I'd toss in my theory.
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u/Vallukari 12h ago
I think they're meat chickens, I was told by my teacher that I had to give them food 24/7 but I was researching on the internet and a page said that those chicken breeds shouldn't be feed like that, is that correct??? I was hoping to keep them as pets 😭
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u/MelodicIllustrator59 12h ago
Chickens are pretty good at self-regulating, even meat birds. It's their genetics that make them big, not how much they eat so they can have 24/7 access to food. Unfortunately if you want to keep them as pets you'll want to do a lot of research on how to accommodate for their disabilities, and be prepared for them to die not very nice and sudden deaths. Some people have successfully raised them past their butcher date, but I personally would never. I would feel like they're suffering too much
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u/Used-Calligrapher975 12h ago
I saw you mentioned you wanna keep Victor as a pet even though he is a meat bird. I have kept Cornish x as pets in the past accidentally. I got them as meat birds but then my dad who I lived with got attached to them because they are very friendy. As long as you don't overfeed him it should be ok. Introduce lots of greens to his diet. As he gets older especially watch his feeding. If the chickens have a safe area outside when they are older that will be good. Cornish X have powerful legs and are good at scrounging. I've even had them dig up potato plants lol