Tuesday, March 8, 2011

How the babies are doing!

My chicks are thriving!  I have yet to edit some photos I took of them because I haven't been on top of my editing.  They have little feathers now!  They started on their wings and are now sprouting out of all kinds of random spots... so they are really awkward looking.  They still have down and they have teeny tiny feathers so it's an interesting combo.  My first born (haha now I sound like a crazy chicken lady), Elle is the most awkward of all.  Her head has almost microscopic feathers on it mixed with down which gives her the appearance of having over gelled, teenage boy hair from 1999.  You remember that right?

I just gave them a treat of scrambled eggs.  A lot of people ask me about this, they think it's kind of like canabalism.  Here is the thing, a chick gets all of it's nutrients from the yolk while in the egg becoming an adorable fluffy chick.  So all of those nutrients are still great for them when they get older!  I found myself with two dozen eggs in the fridge and wasn't sure what to do so I whipped a few up, gave them to my hens first and then my chicks.  My hens scarfed them down in about 3 seconds flat.  My chicks are still kind of special... they grab bits of egg and instead of eating it they run around chirping happily or maniacly, not sure which as of yet, and then find a corner to try to eat it.  But by chirping they have now drawn attention to themselves and someone will usually come over and steal their bit of egg.  When I hold the little dish out for them sometimes they go completely insane and jump on my arm and hand or on the dish and try to take all the egg for themselves instead of sharing with each other.  They also adore cheerios like their older counterparts.  Not so fond of grapes though, neither are the older ones.  Birds of a feather eh..?

Now on the subject of Bill.  Bill was given away to Circle Pond Farms in Chester where I got him as a chick with his siblings.  Their two young roosters were duds when it came to fertilizing eggs and as we all know, Bill is the king of that, so he will spend his days getting as much chicken nookie as he can handle and will produce adorable Rhode Island Red chicks for all!  :D  Vincent will stay with my flock and we'll see how he does as a rooster!  I got the chicken saddles in the mail anyway, so I was able to put those on my two injured hens and let them back out in the yard.  I need to post photos later because they look super cute.  I'll be posting a link to the shop I got them from at the bottom of the blog.  My husband put a pink one on my cat and hilarity ensued.  I spit out my tea because I laughed so hard.  If you dress a cat apparently it slinks around the house in a ridiculous manner.

The chicks just started trying to dustbath when I checked on them.  That isn't good.  Dustbathing in poop and shavings isn't going to get them anywhere haha.

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