Our Lovely New Flock

I feel absolutely guilty for not starting the new flock journal sooner. There have been a lot of events pulling my attention and time. Here we are now so let's talk birds. ; )

We picked up our babies at the extension office on April 7th. This is our third flock of 25 Black Sex-Link pullets.

We immediately got them home into what we like to call the baby box. We keep the girls in a tub on the enclosed back porch so they are protected and because it is easy to keep an eye on the antics and take care of them until we feel they are ready to move into the teen house.

We make sure they know where the water is...
No one really needs to show them where the food is, they are more like piggies than chickens...

They settled in quickly and everyone looks great...

Every night before bed the kids and I would check bottoms to make sure no one is getting a pasted bottom. We check them for up to a week, just to be safe. I don't know why we did not find this in prior flocks but this time we learned something new. One night while checking bottoms we found an interesting second spot. At first we were concerned there was a problem so we looked it up. Baby chicks have belly buttons! Cool huh? Well, if you think about it you would agree that it makes sense, right? This is where they are attached to the food source in the egg, just before hatching they suck up all the protein from the egg and that is what keeps them fortified for a day or so until they can get to where they are going.

Ok, I have to go but I will be posting the next article in a little while. Wait til you see what is going on with those girls now.