A scattered tale of our baby chicks

I was just walking down our long driveway yesterday, after visiting with my neighbor across the road; and I thought, "I live here? Really?! I live here???" It will be a year at the beginning of July. A year ago Monday is the exact date that we closed on our house in Minneapolis. It can still be such a strange thing to contemplate.

Our baby chicks are doing well - like any babies, they are growing and changing right before our very eyes. It is amazing. They are quickly outgrowing their enormous hot-water heater box; it looked so big when we first put them in it two weeks ago. My in-laws are building a transitional coop for the chicks as a birthday gift to Squeeze. [Isn't that a great 31st birthday present?! ...Oh my goodness...I'll be 31 this year...!!] It is in a stall of one of the outbuildings. Squeeze's mom called it a "stye" yesterday. Meaning, a literal pig stye, not just mess (although it is a total mess as well). I'm not sure what it is, but the space is going to work so well for us.

It has a concrete floor, three sides of the building are steel walls, the roof is insulated, and it is right next to a grassy area between it and one of the dairy barns, which will be perfect for the chicken yard. They are building a wall along the 4th side with a human-sized door for us and the chicken-sized door for them. There will be chicken wire along the upper part of the wall, so there will be plenty of air movement in there for them. It is perfect. Perfect! The only downside is that it doesn't have a window and from what I've read, chickens need that; the morning light tells them when to wake up in the morning. We may be able to cut a window for them - we'll see.

Pecking at spinach and grass

Here they are! The buff chicks are Buff Orpingtons, the one light brown one is an Ameraucana (they lay blue/green eggs), the chicks with the black and white flecks (and white spot on their heads) are the Dominiques, and the ones with the black and white coloring, faces included, are the Silver Laced Wyandottes. The Black Australorps are black with a white belly, but it doesn't look like they appear in either picture.

A relaxed Dominique

The Dominique chicks are extremely friendly. Out of all of the chicks, they come running to you instead away. They are very curious, always pecking at my rings, pulling on the hair-ties on my wrist, or climbing onto my hand, as you see in this picture. I am so pleased, because there are ten Dominique chicks and five each of the others. I scored on the friendly ones and didn't even know it! Yesssss. I chose them because I read that they were an American Heritage bird and I like their barred feathering. I definitely like them the best out of the whole crew - I have a feeling we're going to be great buddies.

The Ameraucanas, on the other hand, cower in the corner whenever I put my hand down into the brooder, poor things. Once they are used to my presence, they carry on with their chicken-like behavior: pecking, scratching, giving themselves dust-baths in the wood chips. But they never come up to me. The other three are neither overly-friendly or over-frightened. Some come up, some cower, others totally ignore me.

They were downy soft babies just a few weeks ago. They came in a fairly small box, with breathing hole all around. Squeeze brought the frantically peeping box of babies into the house and as we opened it, they were piling up in a corner squishing the unfortunate ones on the inside and peep-peep-peeping. Poor things. We took them out, one by one, and put their beaks in water. Once each of them drank (by lifting up their heads, swallowing, and smacking their beak together - it is so cute), we put them in their little boxes under the heat lamps - 15 in each. I bet they would be too small for even five or six birds now.

They were downy and round - so tiny. I've noticed that they started feathering out within days, the Buff Orpingtons first. It starts on the end of their wings with the cutest little tips of feathers you can imagine, then it spreads up until all their wings are feathered. Then their tail feathers start to grown, then their backs. They look really gawky and awkward once this starts to happen. Not unlike big-toothed greasy pre-teens with wide spaces between each of their teeth. Just weird.

Now they sleep snuggled together at different points of the day and as soon as it gets dark; but that first week, they slept anytime, anywhere. I watched them fall asleep eating, drinking, and even walking. All of a sudden, their eyes and heads and wings would start drooping, and there they'd drop - whatever they were doing. Literally! The second week, the those that were awake would walk on the ones who were sleeping, causing them to peep in protest and have to re-settle themselves. They are such babies. Even with their natural instincts, they have so much to learn. They are simply adorable.