My primary book reference “Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens” by Gail Damerow suggests putting feed on pieces of paper for days old chicks, then switching to a shallow tray once they have all figured out what to peck. I have some card stock I’ve been trying to get through (I thought I was ordering bright white, but what I ordered had rainbow flecks, ugh), so I used some of that to make simple little trays. The nice thing about the trays is they can be thrown away when they get poopy. But it will be even nicer when they eat just out of the hanging feeders. Any who, here is the video:
Category: chickens
Names
We banded, weighed, and named all the chicks, and made a little chart. (The marks next to the names indicate who named the chick. Each child named 5, and my husband and I named one each.)
The table that I originally made to the hold the brooder (aka dog crate), makes a great prep table. I’ve been using it to clean up pasty butt. They started out pretty clean, but are getting more stuck to their feathers now. We are making twice daily checks of all 12 chicks.
And here is a video of the chicks at three-days old!
Ni-night
One of the sources I’ve been reading for caring for chicks said when moving chicks to a new location, leave a light on for them so they don’t get lost in the dark. So tonight I left the lights on in the coop. When I went to check in them after dark, they were having a little chicky party; eating and drinking and happily peeping it up. So I went and found some lower key lights. I left a flashlight on while I went hunting for lights. When I got back (with decorative LED lights from a vase inside), most of them had settled down. By the time I had the lights hooked up and the flashlight off, all but one had gone birdie ni-night. Wow. It is not that easy with human kids. Just saying.
It is a pretty fancy night light, but hey, it was free, LED, and it works!
We have chicks!
After cancelling the online order of chicks (because they had a “glitch” and couldn’t ship my chicks until May 20th), I went in search of local Faverolle chicks.
I had to drive an hour away to a feed store that received a shipment today, but they had faverolle pullets, and enough for me to get 12! There is a 5% chance that one is male, which would not be a bad thing, since I originally wanted a rooster too.
Here is a video, it is a little broken up, I’ll get better with practice!
Sophie is very curious about what I’ve brought home to put in “her house”.
Our kids were super excited when I picked them up from school. My eldest is already training them to be lap chickens. I think she will be successful because one fell asleep in her hand!
Probably off my rocker
I’ve decided to play music for my future chicks. I did for my human children, so why not? I found an old iPod shuffle, and really old speakers and they miraculously work together. I’ll have to charge the iPod every night, but that isn’t a big deal since I only want to play the music during the day. I read that some chickens seem to like classical best, so I picked out some soft instrumentals, but also some with women singing and men singing in hopes that it will acclimate them to both kinds of voices. The list is rather heavy on Loreena McKennitt and Simon and Garfunkle.
I seriously considered playing them barbershop tunes, but some of those get quite energetic. Maybe later.
Faverolle chicks are said to be easily freaked out, so maybe this will help. Or give them all little birdy heart-attacks. I guess we’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.
Maybe I will have musical chickens?
Critters and Craft 