Well, it has officially begun. We now have a feathered family. No, we didn't go through and evolution and suddenly grow sings. We did however purchase a few (by a few I mean 31, now 30) chicks of various breeds and ages. My family members can't be trusted not to come home with something- myself included. All it takes is a need to explore chicken scratch at a ranch store and then find out that they are offering 10 chicks free with a 50lb bag of feed... My dad ordered 2 bags of feed and we took home our 21 chicks. (I know that doesn't add up. my dad bought an extra chick because he felt bad about leaving one little chick in the brooder at the store.) My parents decided they wanted to get organic feed, so they went back to find out if they could exchange it. They ended up paying the difference for the feed and in the process the sales clerk supposedly insisted that they take 10 more chicks. At that point we then had 31 chicks. Unfortunately one of them didn't make it. So we now have 30.
Now the issue isn't having 30 chicks... its that we now have 30 chicks chilling in a watering trough in the loft of our house that are in addition to 10 that we are receiving from friends of ours in town. Those are the 10 we originally were supposed to be starting out with. Those chickens will be a bit older than the others, but we are in hopes that they will integrate nicely and we will have several different generations of chickens .
I don't have pictures of each individual (although it is a goal to have an info sheet for each chicken in the future) but here are a few of the collective bunch.
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| The little Reds seem to be pretty brave and curious |
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| I stuck the camera in like I would my hand and this one got all excited to check out my camera. |
I decided to start hand feeding them as well. Not only is it getting them used to my hand so I can pick them up easier it is also allowing me to have a few that will be able to interact with kids when they come out to our farm/homestead. I know that my cousin's daughter will love being able to have them eat out of her hand. The Rhode Island Reds seem to be a bit more adventurous than the others. anytime my hand goes in they come running to check it out. There are also a few of the Sex Links that will do it.
They are amazing to just sit and watch. Each of the hens has brooding hardwired into their genetics. Before we lost the little one, one of the older Sex Links chicks would burrow herself into the paper and get the little chick to go under her wing. I love how God has placed a maternal instinct in us at any age, even my niece (my cousin's daughter) has that with her baby dolls. We are programmed to love in some capacity.
Well that is all for now. I will hopefully have a {Letters from the Garden} update tomorrow or Saturday.
Love Always,
Rebecca
