# What was once a 'fake' egg...



## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Is now a cute surprise!  We don't have any actual fake eggs, so when my birds decide they want to lay, I swap the eggs for one chicken egg. Normally it would be a bantam egg, but lately only my bigger laying chickens have had eggs. Didn't bother this mom at all, but I bet she was surprised when this little guy poked his head up!








I thought it made a good picture, and you guys would like it  We've got our brooder set up so now this little chick has to say bye bye to mommy.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

LOL...LOL...
That's the cutest thing I've seen all day!!!


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

Becky, that is HYSTERICAL!! Poor momma pij..she's gonna miss her "baby!"

That would be a good contest picture!!

Wishing the little one all the best...keep us updated on this thread!

Love and Hugs

Shi


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

OMG! I just asked if this could be done not long ago...my foster son wanted to know....more proof that it can....I just hope I can hold him off till spring... he needs to be happy with the two 5 day old pidji babies we have now...I won't show him the pic.....even though it is the cutiest thing i have seen in a long time.


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## EgypSwiftLady (Jan 14, 2008)

Becky that is the cutiest picture I've seen in a long time! Thank you it made my day!


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## maryjane (Jul 15, 2006)

OF COURSE right when the photo contests is over!!!  That's really cute. That happened to another member (or could have been a story posted by a member, my memory is not what it used to be lol) awhile back. At least she gets to be mommy for a day!


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Thanks guys 
Spirit Wings, yep, it can be done. This is actually the third time I've had a chicken hatched by my young birds. As a matter of fact, this is the second for the mom in the picture. The only thing is it takes chicken eggs a few more days to hatch, but usually the pigeons will sit on them plenty long enough. An incubator and brooder (or at least a box with a heat lamp) are good to have handy just in case the foster parents abandon nest, or in case the egg does hatch and you need a place to put the baby. Today the chick is either 2 or 3 days old. I'm going with 3, since he was fluffy, active, and very vocal yesterday when I first noticed him there. Now he's in a brooder with 5 other chicks I just got today. Took some more pictures of him in his new home.








http://picasaweb.google.com/MaryOfExeter/August13th2008

And since I know someone will ask about the tags on the other chicks, I might as well go ahead and explain (please don't be upset with me?). If it were my choice they wouldn't have tags, but these are actually broiler chicks. My FFA teacher volunteered me and my friend Caroline to basically babysit the chicks until the county fair when we'll have to show them and auction them off I believe. I originally thought I could keep them if I wanted, like Caroline is doing with her market lambs, but turns out I have to let them go  I don't like the idea of what the chicks were bred and raised for, but there's not really anything I can do about it. I just hope I can give them a nice happy, healthy life while they're staying here. Better here than with someone else who may not take care of them properly.

Back to my little chick, I'll be keeping you guys updated on him/her. Since most of you have daily pictures of your squeakers, it'd be cool to do the same with a chicken. Their growth isn't as dramatic from day to day but it'd still be neat to do


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## maryjane (Jul 15, 2006)

Here is the link to the other story:

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showthread.php?t=23596&highlight=chicken


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Awww. What a cute 'pair'  Now that I think about it, I had a pair of pigeons nesting in a nestbox close to the floor once, and somehow they ended up sitting on a chicken egg. I didn't put it there, but I think one of my little hens must have slipped in there when I was looking one day. The egg didn't hatch, but I kept telling my dad it would be cool if it did.


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## the bird man (Jun 18, 2008)

that is so cool. could you just image if you let the pigeon raise that chicken.maybe you could raise a homming chicken.what if it actually flew with the rest of the the flock.that would be something to see, all kinds of pigeons and a chicken flying circles around the house.it would be considered a picken or chigeon. i wonder if it's even possible.anyway i'm a little of topic but that is a cute picture.what kind of chicken is it?


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## TerriB (Nov 16, 2003)

the bird man said:


> ...i wonder if it's even possible...


Although a pigeon might be able to hatch out a chicken egg, I think there would be a problem with a pigeon raising a chicken. Pigeons are an "altricial" species, where the young are born helpless, so the parents feed them with sloughed off tissue from their crop for the first few weeks. Chickens, on the other hand, are a "precocial" speciesl, where the young are relatively mature and mobile (so self-feeding) from the moment of birth or hatching. There would be a disconnect between how the pigeon wants to raise the baby and how the baby needs to be raised!


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## the bird man (Jun 18, 2008)

yeah your probably right.but it still would be cool if a chicken grew up think it was a pigeon


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Terri is right. This chick could be kept incubated by the pigeons, and could live in the loft for a while, but the main problem is the nest is much too high off the ground. If the nest was level with the floor, and I had the food and water on the floor where the chick could reach it, it would be okay...but that's not the case. This little guy will be a couple weeks before it can flutter around. It's mixed, but it hatched from a big brown egg, so it's mom was one of my black Sex-Link hens. The dad was probably Reggie, our RIR rooster. If not then it's dad was a little bantam. It's such a pretty color right now, I can't wait to see what color it's adult feathers will be


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## the bird man (Jun 18, 2008)

bantam chickens can fly pretty, well can't they?


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Usually, yes. I had a golden seabright (I think he may have been mixed, but you couldn't tell other than his color was a bit more yellow than normal) rooster that when we first got him, he was VERY skittish. I ran around the corner one day on my way to the loft, scared the jeebus out of him, and he flew up above our tallest pine trees (which are very tall by the way)  He seemed to fly just as easy as my pigeons. There's a good side and a bad side to having bantams versus larger chickens. The good thing is they can fly away from predators more easily, and are quicker in general. The bad thing is if you don't have their wings clipped and in a pen, they may decide to roost in the trees, and it's hard to break them from that  Then there's a chance an owl will get them 
I have noticed that they usually only roost in trees if they are too scared to go back in the hen house, so if you make sure nothing gets in there, they should go back in 


~My 2 cents on chicken keeping, lol.


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## gingerpoo (Jul 31, 2008)

way cute picture!!


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

OMG! Just totally too cute for an old lady like me to handle! Totally adorable! 

Terry


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## maryjane (Jul 15, 2006)

the bird man said:


> yeah your probably right.but it still would be cool if a chicken grew up think it was a pigeon


Lol, my chicken Fussy Gussy thinks she's a pigeon. When she was a few days old, she slipped through the regular-sized chicken wire I had on my aviary (back before I knew about 1/4 " hardware cloth! ). She grew up with the pigeons and spent almost three years as a pigeon until she grew too ornery to be in with them, at which point I had to keep her in a large cage inside the aviary, which she didn't like well. Now she lives on a free-range country property with nine other hens and visits the pizza parlor next door for free handouts each day.


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

That is a darling picture of pigeon and baby chicken.


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## little bird (Aug 11, 2006)

Becky, I hope you save that picture for next year's contest. I love how protective Momma is of her strange little darling.


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

Becky, I have enjoyed reading this thread and agree that is one cute little chicken.


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

Hopefully, I didn't miss the answer, Becky...but, you ARE going to keep that little one, aren't you???

Hugs and Scritches!

Shi


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Yep, the little brown one I'm keeping, and there's nothing to stop me  Even though he's still so young, I'm thinking I need to come up with a name to call it. With my luck, it'll probably turn out to be a rooster, but I like the name Livia, since s/he was hatched by pigeons. I guess if it looks to be a rooster, it could be...Columbus?


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

MaryOfExeter said:


> Yep, the little brown one I'm keeping, and there's nothing to stop me  Even though he's still so young, I'm thinking I need to come up with a name to call it. With my luck, it'll probably turn out to be a rooster, but I like the name Livia, since s/he was hatched by pigeons. I guess if it looks to be a rooster, it could be...Columbus?


I like Livia...however, I LOVE Columbus for a male...what about Columb*ia* for a hen??? 

Love, Hugs and Scritches

Shi


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Oooo, that sounds good too!  I think from now I'll assume it's a he, and call him Columbus then


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## Noisy_minor (Jun 20, 2008)

thats the cutest thing ive seen in ages. i too was only just wondering if it was possible to hatch quail eggs under another bird species. cool


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

I don't know about quail eggs. The baby quail I've had were pretty small. It may not be safe to have larger foster parents; they might squish them! 


I'm off to take new pictures. Yesterday's didn't turn out so good for some reason.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

That is probably the cutest thing I've seen in a long time. Love the photo. Thanks for sharing


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