Monday, March 17, 2008

Chicks

Our newest members of our family are adorable and quite MESSY! I wanted to raise chickens this year and have been longing for adventures of some farm life I can have in the city. I told John I really want to live on a farm and have goats, chickens, and some sheep, and horses. Maybe someday I will live on a land that I can farm on. You are allowed to have six hens in the city limits so I'm taking full advantage of me getting somewhat of a farm I can get. We got the chicks on Wednesday (after our field trip). I was told to get," White Horn Chickens ", for I wanted egg layers. They will produce more eggs more than other breeds. So, here we are with little chicks in our kitchen, in a card board box with a heat lamp on them. When we first got them they had no feathers to be seen and now their feathers have grown into almost to their backside. They are a week and half old now. They are also getting little stubs of feathers growing on their backsides for their tails. Yesterday, they started to jump up and flap their wings to get some air and I watch in amusement that they are growing so fast each day. John deided to experiment on what they will do with some dried up flower buds with a little stem on them and dropped it in the box. WOW!! They all of the sudden became a football show, watching them running with the flower buds while others are trying to take it away and tackle the other one. One would get it and others would tackle and grab it for themselves and it just went on tell the buds were all gone. We just laughed and wished we had this on video tape. It was so funny and the girls just laughed so hard that they were falling over with excitement. Our girls are constantly asking to hold the chicks, but of course we have already taken some days away from them to hold, as a punishment for not leaving them along in the box or treating them not nicely while holding them. It has been a constant battle for them to listen to me about the rules to having the chicks in the house.

I had one chicken when I was younger and I only had it for two weeks or less before it died. I think I should have gotten more since I think it wasn't kept warm correctly with help of other little bodies to huddle with. So, I get paranoid at night when all is quiet in the box and run to them checking if they are all breathing. They are like nursing babies and sleep all lot, and eat, and POOP all the time. I make sure I get them out at least twice a day to experience other things and mostly I am trying to tame them as my pets. I pet them on my lap and have them cuddle up with me and sleep away all cuddled up in my arms and hands. They have already becoming more laid back and wanting to be cuddled more with me. The girls are too bouncing and can't sit still real long so they can't get them calmed down to much yet on their laps. I will name them soon, if even I need to put food coloring on their back ends to know who is who at this age. We have plenty of wood to build a big size coop and they will have an inside building and an outside area for them to run around soon I hope. I have been taking plenty of pictures so far, so I will share some of them.




My girl night pizza party pictures of friends...you now who you are.

Huddled together in the hand of Christine




My time with them and working on taming them....also an intrigued cat




Pictures of the girls and the chicks








3 comments:

Heidi said...

My girls are so excited by these pictures! They want to come visit so bad! I told them we'd work something out when everyone stops being sick (Aimee has it bad now :( ) I'm glad you are having fun with your chicks.

charisse said...
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charisse said...

We are alright having fun with the chicks. They are a month old now and don't look like baby chicks anymore. They have feathered out and flying around now. Need to come over soon if you want to see them.