It is like Christmas all over again! We got our baby chicks! 67 to be exact. We were also supposed to get baby ducks, but they didn't hatch out in time, so we will have to wait a few more weeks for them :( A little bummed about that, but I will post again once we get them!
A month ago, I placed our order online for a mixture of brown egg layer pullets (female) chicks, along with a couple of other specific breeds.
After placing the order, we had to decide where to put the chicks. We don't have a barn up yet, and in all honesty, they are so cute for the first couple of weeks that I really wanted them in the house. :) But, if you have read previous posts, we don't exactly have any extra space in the house. Adding something new means something old had to get moved.
So, we scooted the dining room table out from its place, and made room for them in the corner.
We put together a brooding box by taping a bunch of boxes together to make a large enough space.
As you can see, the kids commandeered the box for themselves for a few days. They built a ramp and were racing their cars down it...
After the kids became less interested in the box, we added saw dust for bedding, and put in their water bowls and feeders, hooked up the heat lamp, and waited for the chicks to come.
I got an email monday morning informing me that they had shipped! That meant they would arrive anytime in the next three days.
Wed morning (everything ALWAYS happens on Wednesdays around here) I got a call at 6:45am from the local post office ( yup, they really do ship them through the mail!) letting me know that my chickens were ready to be picked up! Michael was awake, so a snatched him up, and we headed to town. He was as excited as I. We picked them up from the friendly lady at the front desk, after letting her take a peak (baby chicks are irresistible and must be looked at), and headed home to show the rest of the crew
Michael holding the box of chicks. Hard to believe they are small enough to fit 68 chicks in one box.
We got them home and everyone was super excited. I showed the older kids how to give each chick their first drink of water, which we did just that before handing them to the younger kiddos so they could put them into their new home.
By this time though, we had to go. Wednesdays are MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) days, and we have to leave by about 7:30 to go open the doors and finish setting up before our moms get there. So I loaded up my very unenthusiastic children and we headed to town. It was probably a good thing we had to leave, so that the chickens could settle in a little bit and have some peace. But come 12:00, the kids were the quickest i have ever seen loading up in the car to go home. They wanted to see their chicks!
Who could blame them! Look how adorable they were!
Because we just got a mix, we had no idea which breeds we actually ended up with, but that just made them all the more fun.
I had added 12 "Easter Eggers" because they are the ones that lay green eggs, and we really like getting green (and sometimes blue or cream!) eggs, and we knew which ones they were. They look like this:
Can't wait to get colored eggs!
and we also added in 3 "purple" chicks. ( I know, there are only 2 in the picture, but we really do have three!)
I am more then a little excited to see how "lavender" they actually are as adults. One of the lavender chickens we ordered as a Cockerel (Rooster). Once they get older, I hope to have a continual rotation of baby chicks around, hatched naturally by their mommies, with this beautiful lavender rooster as the father. We will see in a few months how that works out. :)
For now though, we are completely enamored with these little ladies. They are soo adorable!
Heidi calls this one doughnut
look at those fuzzy feet!
a Lavender Orpington and Easter Egger
So Cute! ( we didn't even clear the table after brakfast we were too excited to play with the babies lol)
Thanks to the Chicken magazine we got (did you even know they had chicken magazines?!) we have been able to identify a few of the breeds, but there are still some that will remain a mystery until grown. It is still amazing to me that a little fluffy yellow chick can end up being black, and some of the black chicks can grow up being more white with black tips. Just another fun example of God's creativity.
Oh, and here is me getting up on my soap box for a few moments in regard to buying eggs in the store.
BROWN EGGS ARE NOT HEALTHIER THEN WHITE EGGS!
REALLY! Different breeds of chickens lay different colors of eggs, but that doesn't make a brown egg any different on the inside then a white egg (or blue, or green, or olive, or......)
What you feed them and how they are raised are what makes the difference. If they are able to get a nice diet of foods, to eat bugs, pebbles, dirt.. all the things they would eat in the wild, their eggs will reflect that and have delicious, rich, orange colored yolks.
store bought, brown "organic" egg on the left, farm raised White egg on the right.
But it has nothing to do with the color of their shells. So the next time you see those expensive brown eggs at the store, don't be tricked into buying them just because they are brown and look more "natural"! It is more important how they were raised then what color their shells are. I promise!
ok, done with that rant, but really, color has nothing to do with nutrition. A farm raised white egg is just the same on the inside :)
Thanks for visiting and taking a peak into the beginning of our family farm.
Until next time...
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