Sunday, March 4, 2012

As promised, the girls!

We have chicks!

They are super cute!

And super fast!

We use mason jar style feeder and drinkers, which is why you can see glass jars in the corners of most of these photos.

They don't all have names. For the most part we're sticking with Harry Potter themed names to go with Albus and Lupin the cats. Not to mention Fred the apple tree. Foghorn Leghorn was the first one we named. She's the loudest. Then there was Umbridge. She wasn't very nice that first day. Luna is the one with the whitest wings, and Buckbeak likes to peck the sides of the box. She will escape!

There are 6 altogether, so we need 2 more names.

There's usually a heat lamp on at all times. It needs to be 95 degrees F in the box for the first week. I had to shut it off for a few minutes to snap these as it casts a red light. I took these very fast so forgive me some sloppiness.

They are so cute when they act like grown ups. They scratch their faces like dogs. They learned how to stretch Friday night. They stick out one leg and one wing. It scared me at first. "What's wrong with that bird's leg?" But once one chick learned how to do it, they all started doing it. It's the cool thing to do. They also love to scratch and peck at the wood shavings.

And sometimes each other. That's how the establish their pecking order. Someday we'll have an alpha female.

They're also learning how to roost. We didn't have anything very appropriate in the house for them to roost on, so we went into the yard and brought in some sticks and stuck them through the sides of the box.

Luna's the only one who wants to practice roosting right now. And she doesn't like to do it for long.

My sister's kids have been over this weekend. They adore watching the girls. I love to go in with my morning cup of coffee and just stare at them. They're always up to something interesting or cute.

3 comments:

  1. They are really cute!!! Love the names. I'm so excited for you!

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  2. Aw!! Love new chicks!! I just can't imagine life without chickens. Glad I found your blog....enjoying it!

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