From Cheep, Cheep to Buck, Buck, Begock!

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

We got a call at a few minutes after seven this morning from the post office with the news that our chicks had arrived! They'd been there since 4am, but thankfully the postman waited until a respectable hour to call. So we turned on the heating lamp to get the cage warmed up—it should be about 95º for the first week—and headed out to meet our new chicks. (See the box at the bottom to find out where they came from.)

We heard chirping first, and then the postman walked out of the backroom with a small cardboard box containing our baby chicks. It was smaller than we expected. Fifteen minutes later, the chicks were in their new home. The guides we had read said to dip each chick's beak in water as you take them out of the box so they learn how to drink. It seemed to work, and soon they were dipping their heads back as they drank out of the waterer in the cage. They didn't need any help on eating...they were feasting themselves on corn crumbles the next instant!

We forgot to count them as we took them out of the box, so Nate made a few attempts to count them in the cage. It seems like we ended up with one extra, because he counted 11 Rhode Island Reds. And every single chick was alive upon arrival – truly amazing! They were all huddled up together in the box when we opened it, as you can see from the pictures below. They kept warm by staying close together, and as we got down to the last few in the box, they were still huddled up together in the corner.

So far, the chicks seem to be adapting well and are surprisingly energetic. They can zip around the cage pretty quick. They don't appear to have any personal space boundaries, as they will literally walk on top of each other to get where they want to go. When they're tired, they just plop down and fall asleep within seconds, or just go to sleep standing, with their heads drooping, until someone bumps into them and wakes them up. We realized that they can fit through the holes in the cage, but that shouldn't be a problem much longer since they grow so quickly. All in all, they're super entertaining to watch!

To see movies of the chicks, click on the links below. The movies are slow to load, so it may take a few minutes.
INTRODUCING THE CHICKS! :: NAPTIME

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Monday, May 14

The chicks are healthy and growing like weeds! They've gotten much better at balancing, and can now perch a few inches off the ground. They're also getting better at flying as their wings start to develop, and some of them are starting to grow feathers on their tail. So far, they're still darn cute.

We have to report one casualty, unfortunately. One of the chicks died on Thursday, and it just happened to be Jen's favorite chick, sadly enough, the white one with black stripes. The only white one in the flock had to fall ill, instead of one of the 11 red ones...how's that for ironic? It's part of nature, but it sure is a bummer. At Jen's insistence, we gave the little chick a proper burial in the backyard by the chicken pen so she could be near her brothers and sisters.

Since so many people have been asking us, we'd just like to make it clear that we brought these chicks for laying eggs, and we do not plan to eat them. However, there is nothing wrong with eating them, and many people in our area do raise chickens for food. If you think about it, raising your own poultry means that the meat is organic and fresh, unlike most of the stuff you can buy in the store.

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Friday, May 25

The chicks made a big move this week. We had planned to keep them inside longer, but the mess and the beginnings of barn smell in our bathroom were the two catalyses for the decision. It coincided with warmer weather, fortunately, and the chicks seem much happier outside.

We set them up in a bigger cage in the barn, with some blankets to help with the chill from the bare floor. They have much more room to run and do their new favorite thing: fly. Sometimes they escape the cage, but after a while they usually fly back in. The barn door is kept closed so that can't actually leave. Nate started feeding them out of his hand, and it seems to have made them a little friendlier.

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Wednesday, June 6

Our little chicks are growing into mini chickens! They are almost full-feathered, and starting to grow combs and tail feathers. Now that they've turned a month old, I guess we can no longer call them baby chicks.

With the warm weather and the chicks' hasty growth, we made the decision to give them full reign of the barn. So after taking out the cage and putting down straw, the barn was transformed into a chicken coop! We bought them a full-sized waterer and feeder as well. They love their new environment, which gives them plenty of room to run around, flap their wings, and scratch through the straw. We've been letting them explore outside, and they're getting braver each time they go out. Last night Nate dug up some bugs for them, and they had a grand time chasing each other around (when one picks up a bug, all the others run after him until he eats it or drops it). They're even more fun to watch now than they were as chicks!

So Where Did Our Chicks Come From? Ah, the naivety of first timers! We were planning to adopt some chickens in April of 2007 at the local hatchery, but found out that everyone was sold out because of Easter. So we turned to online hatcheries. They have better varieties, but you must order a minimum of 25 baby chicks so that they stay warm in the box. The two we liked best were McMurray's and QC Supply. You may be wondering, as we were, how in the world can they ship newborn chicks across the country? Well, shortly after they're born, they pack the chicks into a small box, where they're forced to be close together and therefore keep each other warm. At the bottom of the box is a layer of shavings for them to borrow into. After birth, chicks still have yolk remnants on them, which nourishes them for the first two days of their life. They are sent priority mail through the post office, and arrive on the second day. Their new human family should be ready with a cage lined with shavings, a water bottle and feeder, and a heat lamp. They need 95º temperatures for the first week, and you can slowly decrease it every week until they are a few months old. They need to stay indoors until they are about 6-8 weeks old, and once they go outside they should still be protected from cold temperatures. We settled on QC Supply, and ordered the following varieties: Rhode Island Reds, Black Astralorps, Golden Comets, and Americaunas. They're all brown egg layers except the Americaunas, which lay light-blue-colored eggs. We're ordered mostly "pullets" or females, but bought 10 chicks in a "straight run," which means rather than taking extra time to determine the sex of each chick, they'll just reach into the bunch and pick out the first 10 they get. The idea is that they'll get half male and half female, although there is a chance they'd only end up with one or two males. A male rooster will protect the flock, keep the hens temperaments calmer, and fertilize the eggs in case we ever want to hatch our own chicks.