It's unbelievable how much the chickens could change in a week.  The biggest issue is that they have literally grown feathers overnight.  With the exception of Millie and Boots, our chickens have grown beautiful wing feathers and tail feathers are very noticeable in Gracie and especially Hazel.  Check out their before and after photos.  It's only been 6 days!! (When we chose Penelope, her wing feathers were already well established). 

The temperature in their mini coop is now around 90 degrees.  They are enjoying about 1/2 hour outside everyday, which they seem to be very happy about, even though they huddle around the heat lamp once they get inside for about 15-20 minutes.  They have been introduced to a roosting stick, which Penelope mastered first.  She looks quite funny sleeping on it, because her head hangs so low, but Hazel is now enjoying the roost and it looks like Gracie will be next.  

5/17 A Chick Field Trip

Today it was gorgeous outside!  85+ degrees, a bit breezy, and a sweet spring smell in the air.  The boys and I did some yard work and after an afternoon of manual labor it was time for some hosing off and a refreshing popsicle.  I felt it was holding at around 85, so I made the decision to bring the nursery outside for a little while.

Tom and I decided this morning to make a wire lid out of some 19-gauge hardware cloth, just to keep the cats from nosing around in the nursery while we're out of the room.  It was a little wider than we needed so we just bent down the sides so it hung over about 8 inches on either side.  

When we brought the chicks outside, it was originally just my idea to let them enjoy a little sunshine, but as they seemed to like it outside and didn't seem cold, I decided to put one in the grass to see how she'd do.  Well, our cat, Maizy, immediately went into stalking mode, so for the chicks protection, I put the wire lid over her and presto! and outdoor playpen was born.   

Talk about happy chickens!  Oh, it was delightful to watch them scratch around in the grass and pick the ground for whatever they wanted.

Hazel and Boots both found burrowing themselves into the grass and laying down almost irresistable.  (She's sleeping, I swear!) 

They spent at least an hour in their little outdoor pen, and when we finally brought them back inside, they all settled into a nice long nap. Going outside must have been quite a highlight for them all.  And it was great entertainment for us as well.  I love happy chickens.  

5/16 Oh, no! Poor Ariel!

Tom and I had a wedding to attend today.  We left the house around 11am, and didn't get back home until 7pm.  We had left the nursery in good shape.  All the chicks were happy and moving around well.  There was absolutely no reason to belive that Ariel was in trouble before we left.

However, when we returned, I found her alone in the corner of the box, and she was already gone.  From her condition, I suspect she had died several hours prior.  I can't tell you why she died, anymore than I could guess why Midge did.  Our suspicions are that they were just not very healthy to begin with, and because of their size didn't have enough in them to really thrive.  

We also have considered that perhaps the walk-in closet where they are kept with their brooding light, became too warm during the day while we were away, and that caused her to perish.  The other hens in our flock seemed to have been fine when we returned, so we're less inclined to belive that, but nonetheless, we are truly saddened to have lost another one.  And it deeply troubles us that it was the two smallest ones.  Now we watch our little Gertrude like a hawk, checking on her nearly every hour or so to make sure that she is doing okay.  

Ariel was buried next to Midge and we pray that we won't have to add any others to our hydrangea bed.  

5/15 Some New Additions

Jaron and I found ourselves in my hometown, Sandy, Oregon today.  We drove past a feed store on our way to meet a friend for lunch and we decided that on the way home, we would stop and see if they had any bantam chicks available to bring our block back up to 6.  

When we got to the feed store, they only had one breed of bantams available, Sebrights; a beautiful breed with remarkable fringed feathers.  But there were two colors, White and Silver.  

How could we choose between 

them?  So we brought them both home and brought our flock up to 7.  

The white one we named Penelope. She has VERY long wings that reach the end of her body, and has an impressive wing span.  She likes to peck the beaks of her nursery mates and steal whatever food they may have.

The other one is speckled black and brown.  We named her Gertrude. 

She is quite small like Ariel and very sweet, but its clear now that our Gracie is a Golden Sebright.   A rainbow of Sebrights?  How fortunate, it seems like we'll have a beautiful flock indeed.  When they are full grown, the feathers are absolutely gorgeous on these birds.  

5/13-"G" Meet Our Flock - "Hazel"

Last, but not least is Hazel.  She is all grey, which seems to be quite uncommon in bantams, so I have no idea what breed she will be as an adult, but no doubt she will change color.  She is an expert scratcher, is probably the biggest of our flock and likes to look up at me with the "Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?"  look on her face.  

5/13-"F" Meet Our Flock -"Grace"

Next came the thumper.  She repeatedly beat her wings on the ground, scratched a lot and kept falling over because she had no real balance.  She fell over so often, that Patrick decided to call her Grace, or Gracie.  She is a really sweet bird and has similar markings to Millie.  She is not as fluffy, has longer wings, and a longer torso with a sort of scarf of black around her neck.  

5/13-"E" Meet Our Flock - "Millie"

Next is my lone silkie.  She has 5 toes, instead of the usual 4, and she has feathered legs and a little bonnet of feathers on her head as well.  Based on some internet photos, it was easy to determine which color she would be, based on her color markings.  She will grow into a Patridge Silkie, or sort of a dusty black.  She'll have a plume of feathers on her head and a dusty boot of feathers on her feet.  She'll look ridiculous and goofy, and I can't wait.  Meanwhile, she kind of resembles a leopard right now.  She has spots and stripes of orange, black and brown and is very pretty.  She was named Mildred, but we keep calling her Millie. 

  

5/13-"D" Meet Our Flock - "Ariel"

The third one is a wee bit larger than Midge, but in no way can be determined to be average size. She is mostly black with a white belly and chin and is very active.  From the moment she got into the brooder, she can't seem to keep herself out of the water dish.  I would hear a ker-plunk and there she would be just wading around in the shallow dish.  I thought she presumed herself a bit of a mermaid rather than a chicken, and since she was so little, I dubbed her Ariel.  The little mermaid chicken.  

5/13-"C" Meet Our Flock - "Boots"

The second of the two yellow-orange ones, is the exact opposite.  She is bigger and bolder in every way.  She seems to have no regard for her other flock mates and it doesn't seem to matter if one is sleeping or eating, she'll just walk right through them, or over the top of them.  She has feathered legs and Jaron decided she'd be known as Boots.  It somehow fits her, even though it doesn't fit my "old-fashioned" name criteria.  

 

5/14- Good Bye Sweet Midge

We woke up on Thursday morning to a mostly happy, cheerful flock, but our dear Midge, was not doing well.  She seemed very dispondent and wouldn't eat or drink.  She seemed even more withdrawn than ever and I was very nervous that she wouldn't make it. And sadly, within an hour, she passed away.   The website we purchased her from has promised a refund, but we really just want our sweet baby Midge back.  We buried her under the blue hydrangea, so we could remember her every spring as it blossoms.  But we are all very sad by her departure.  = (

As for the rest of the nursery, the rest of our girls are doing very well.  They are growing and showing us more of their personalities.  

Boots has found that she can fly to top of the oatmeal container we laid down in their nursery. We cut a hole in the end and one in the side and the pullets love to chase each other through it.  

Hazel has gotten even better at scratching.  She has dug all the way to the bottom through several inches of bedding.  I'm pretty proud of her scratching ability.  I look forward to her expert skills in the garden in a few months. 

The other girls seem to be thriving, though our flock is smaller than we'd hoped, we love them just the same.  And Tom loves just shouting out, "Hello, Little Chickens"!  They bring a lot of joy to our house.

5/13-"B" Meet Our Flock - "Midge"

We have 6 assorted bantams.  It took us a few days to find all of their names, because each personality needed to be assessed to pick just the right one.   Not knowing what any of the individual breeds would be, we could potentially be WAY off picking an appropriate name for each one, but we tried our best, and I guess that time will tell if we got it right on the first try.  I did have one pre-requisite when choosing chicken names.  I really wanted each of the hens to have "old-fashioned" names.

So, we have two yellow-orange ones. This is the color we think of when we think of baby chicks. Like the color of egg yolks.  One is quite small, about the size of a half dollar coin.  Like a midget chicken.  And very much a loner.  She peeps quite loudly, but generally, is pretty quiet overall.  I decide to call her Midge.  She is practically weightless.  

Each of them has a wonderful, funny personality already.  And we are happy to get to know them more and more each day.  

5/13-"A" Our New Bantam Chickens

I was inspired by Patti Moreno, aka, The Garden Girl, from www.gardengirltv.com to look into raising bantam chickens.  Actually, she inspired me to do some organic gardening and I know that her flock of 8 bantams are pivotal to her successful gardening.  So, I read some books, looked around online and decided that bantam chickens were something that we could do.  Surprisingly, my husband Tom was easy to convert to my new idea and we decided to forge ahead.  

Looking around online, I found several different websites that sold day old chicks, but www.mypetchicken.com  was the only one that would ship as few as 3 chicks at a time (most others had a minimum order of 15) and offered sexed chickens instead of just "straight-run", which is a random mix of pullets and cockerels.  So after looking at the different bantam breeds available, I decided that silkies would be my first choice.  I checked out the ordering process and found out that they could ship as early as the following Monday.   I chose two white silkies but quickly found out that the earliest they could ship out was July 27, 2009; a full 10 weeks away!  I was disappointed and didn't really want to wait that long, so I decided to go with a mixed assortment of exotic bantams instead.  They promised at least 4 different breeds with my order of 6, and they would ship out the following Monday.  They ship them using Express Mail from the good old Post Office promising they will arrive by Thursday.

In the meantime, we got all of our supplies together.  My youngest son, Jaron and I went up to the local farm supply store and picked out a feeder, a watering can, some chick starter feed, some hardware cloth, a warming lamp, a pitch fork and some sun shade.  Then I took my oldest son, Don, to the pet store for some wood shavings and some Timothy Hay for bedding and stopped to pick up a nice big plastic tote that you could see through for their luxury chicken nursery.  

Jaron's class has been hatching chicken eggs for the last few days and the teacher has asked for volunteers to keep the new chicks over night.  Feeling very confident in our ability to care for newborn chicks I happily said we'd do it.  We cared for the 10 class chickens on Tuesday evening and sent them back to class on Wednesday morning at 8am.  The post office called me at 8:30am on Wednesday morning to tell me that my new chicks had arrived.  I went to pick them up and the clerk told me that they enjoy it when new chicks come in and that they were happily keeping them warm under a desk lamp until my arrival.  

Having just spent the last 16 hours taking care of standard sized baby chicks, I was ill prepared for what was within the package.  I believe when I opened the box I actually let out a little gasp and squealed, "Oh God!  You are SO CUTE!!"  The first thing I noticed was that they all looked different from one another and they were about half the size of the standard sized chicks.  2 of them were no bigger than a silver dollar.  As I hurried to get them into the nursery to warm them up and give them some much needed food and water, I knew that I was instantly in love!