The "Chicks" - Week One Update

Hectic week here with work, workouts and life in general, however, it has been a week since the chicks arrived and I suspect you are all wanting an update.

Poppy, Daisy, Pearl and Lacey

 Thankfully, all the chicks have survived and, as far as we can tell, they are all healthy.  The young girls are growing by leaps and bounds, and they are starting to feather out.  They are still pretty skittish, but getting used to our voices and they perk up whenever we are out to check on them.

Poppy (Silkie)

Pearl (Silver Laced Wyandotte)

 The big girls are a lot more bold and curious.  I can see a recognition in their eyes when I come into the room and start talking to them.  They crane their necks from side to side and up and down to see who is in the room.  We have no issue feeding them by hand and they will readily jump up on our hands to get the best feeding spot.

Trixie (Barred Rock)

 With all the eating and drinking that goes on between both groups, I can tell you one thing - chickens shit a lot!.  However, the nice thing is that we can collect the droppings and add them to our composters for use in the gardens.

These girls are fun to have and watch; they are very comical and their antics are very interesting.  A simple "wellness check" often turns into a half hour of hand feeding.  As I suspected, my lovely farmhand is quite taken by these ladies and she routinely checks food, water, bums (for pasty butt, which is a deadly condition for chicks) and overall coop cleanliness.  She even asked if "we" were going to the local poultry show this week and "can you buy chickens there?".  Hmmmm.....seems like chickens are the new wool.

In the brooder we have the girls separated given the difference in their age and size.  I wanted to give the chicks a week to grow a little and hopefully be able to fend for themselves when mixed in with the big girls.  Well, we tried to integrate the girls this week and that lasted all of a half hour.  The Spice Girls (Ginger and Cinnamon) and The Tramps (Trixie and Lola) were ruthless in their pecking of The Hippie Chicks (Poppy and Daisy) and The Hick Chicks (Pearl and Lacey).  A couple of the young girls did their darn best to stand up and puff out their chests, but their bravado was no match for the big girls who literally tower over them.  All this to say that the girls are still separated but we have constructed a see-through fence so that they can see each other but no contact.  This will allow them to get used to one another and we will continue to slowly integrate them over the next couple weeks as the young girls continue to grow and catch up in size.

Itchy and Scratchy made a visit this week to see the chicks and talk all manner of gardening, jewellery making, knitting and the like with my lovely farmhand.  While here, Scratchy pondered aloud, "I wonder how many roosters you have?".  Of course we all then wondered for ourselves how many roosters are in this clutch (FYI - my guess is 2).  Scratchy put forward that we should blog about this and everyone can weigh in on how many roosters we may possibly have.  So, in the spirit of good fun, please leave a comment with your guess of how many roosters you think we have.