Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Lots of changes going on and I am not just talking weather. The babies look dreadful because they have hit that stage where they look half naked while trying to grow in all those beautiful big girl feathers. There are some definite personalities in this group of girls! I don't think these will be as easily frightened as the last flock, while they are a bit high strung they are also fiercely inquisitive.

We combined the other two flocks. It was not pretty at first, at all. They have however calmed down and started dealing with each other so maybe they have the pecking order back under control. First we put bands on all the oldest girls legs, with the exception of Zelda and Fuzzy. Now when it comes time for the oldest to move out, we know who is who for sure. Zelda is still not happy about all the new kids in her space but she is hanging in there for us.

Well, there is lots to do while the rain is away so I will update soon with new pictures, until then...Have a great day!

Two weeks, wow!

The prior flocks have all grown at about the same rate, with the exception of a runt or maybe one or two that were just a bit larger like Zelda. This flock somehow lost the memo that they should all be about the same size. We have like two, maybe three chicks that are dinosaur birds, they are HUGE! They are all losing the fuzz and getting feathers at the same speed and everyone seems healthy and all are getting to the food just fine. I am not sure what happened but these girls look like they are on steroids.


I brought a couple of the babies in the house to take pictures so you could see the difference I am talking about. The sad part is that the big girl kept cowering down so she would not be the big kid. I noticed that all the big ones kind of do that but this one seems to do it the most.


Somehow the two that I brought inside turned into five. The kids kept bringing in "just one more."

This is Jewel, she is Sarah's buddy. She is cute.


Overall the girls are doing really well. They are however running out of room in the baby box so this weekend they will definitely be moving into the teen house. ; )

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.