Ten Little Chicks

We went to TSC this past week and bought 10 new baby chickens.  They are adorable.  We are trying a few new varieties.  Ameracanas, Isa Red, and Leghorns.  The Ameracanas lay yellow, blue, and pink eggs.  The leghorns lay white eggs and the Isa Reds lay brown.  We already had 4 chickens that are full grown and the kids love to play with them!
Now Clay and Leanne have been hanging out in the garage to play with the baby chicks.  I find them laying down in the wood shavings playing and talking to the baby chicks.  They have come up with some different names for all of them. Some of the names are Lightning, Yak, Hunter, Chipmunk, Carter, Zack, and Cow (otherwise known as Blackie). 

Leanne with a chick

Clay with a chick

 



Older 3, Allison will pet a chick,

but she will not pick it up.  The kids call

her a "city girl"  not a "farm girl"



Luke and Reed checking out the chicks

The chicks better get used to being handled.

I took 4 of the little chicks to school Tuesday to visit the kindergartners and 1st graders.  The kids loved them!  The chickens were passed all around.  There was a lot of giggling and squealing in both rooms.  Most of the kids liked to hold them, and only a few wouldn't pick them up, but they were all happy to pet them! I think the chickens were a bit relieved to go back home to their makeshift coop.

The kids learned a few lessons today regarding the baby chicks.  One, we must always ask daddy before feeding them and two, the chicks need to be bigger and more grown up before being introduced to the bigger chickens. A child, who will remain unnamed, decided he would feed the baby chicks. He had mountains of food laying by the chicks.  If the chicks get too much food they will trample it down into their wood shavings instead of eating it.  Not to mention the fact that chicks have a certain type of feed until they are older.  So we were not certain what bag the unnamed child grabbed his food from.  Then the unnamed child informed me that he took one of the big chickens and put it by the baby chicks.  He took him out when he realized that the big chicken did not care for the little chicks.  We are uncertain if the adult chicken would harm the baby chicks because they were not born in there coop. Chickens have a pecking order.  One chicken is the leader and then they sort of have a line up in the group.  So when getting new chickens we have to introduce them slowly to the older ones.  They may decide to not lay eggs for awhile otherwise.  We had, a few months back, an animal get into the chicken coop and it plucked out feathers from the back end from one of the chicken and ate some of the eggs.  The chickens wouldn't lay well for a couple of months.  Instead of getting five eggs a day, we were thankful for one or two eggs a day.  Now they have settled down and they are producing a lot more for us. 

Chickens are very interesting and entertaining animal to have around.  They are great and useful for so many things.  Ross just said the other day, "God made chickens for man's use.  Not only do they lay eggs, and provide meat (well not these, unless we put it in a slow cooker for a week. They would have very tough meat) they also keep the yard low on tics and unwanted bugs."  We are thankful for our chickens.