The Broody Bunch

After a week, I’m definitely becoming attached.  My chicks are starting to grow up.  Several of them are starting to get their tail feathers and their wings are feathering out too.

Young Master was playing with the chicks a couple of evenings ago and managed to get one to eat out of his hand.  Naturally, if one chick is getting something to eat then all the others come running to get their share.  Now they all come running as soon as you put your hand in the box.  It’s a nice feeling that they trust me enough to actually jump into my hand for something to eat.  The Leghorns still aren’t too keen on being held but at least they don’t run away from me anymore.

Dapper is adjusting now.  He still isn’t sure what to do about the chicks.  I think he gets a bit jealous when I give the chicks some attention.  He starts whining and shaking and trying to get into my lap.  I’ve held a chick up for Dapper to inspect.  he sniffs her and laps the air all around her.  The first night we had the chicks Dapper kept trying to get out of bed to go check on them.  He doesn’t do that anymore.  He will jump up to look in the box when we’re patting or feeding the chicks.  It makes me laugh to think of how Dapper will react when there are eight full-grown chickens that are all twice as big as he is!

 

We’ve had a lot of fun so far watching the chicks do their chicken things.  I immediately noticed the difference in temperament between the Leghorns and the RI Reds.  I try to pick up and handle the chicks frequently so they get used to me.  The Reds will just stand there and let me slide my hand under them to pick them up.  The Leghorns run away as fast as they can, peeping all the way.

I also noticed that the Leghorns are more adept to foraging.  As soon as I put the new feeder in the box the Leghorns started scratching in the shavings for any food that had been scattered off the pie plate.  The Reds all walked around the new feeder until one of them dared to put her head in one of the holes.  The other chicks quickly followed.

One time one of the chicks fancied a particular piece of shavings and took off to a corner with it.  As soon as the other chicks saw her running with something they all made chase.  She fought for it but eventually it was dropped into all the other shavings and the game was forgotten.

My favorite part of watching the chicks is when they go to sleep.  The chick will walk over under the drop light.  Then slowly she just sort of deflates.  Her eyes close and then her body slowly drops to the floor.  Then her head droops in the same fluid motion until her beak is on the floor.  If she’s warm enough, her wings will relax away from her body a little.  There is nothing cuter than a sleeping chick.  It’s funny that when the box has sleeping chicks that we find ourselves tip-toeing around the box, whispering and hushing the kids.  It’s just as if we had eight sleeping babies.  It’s fun and I’m loving it!!

It’s been three full days since we brought home the chicks.  I wasn’t sure at first if they would survive Young Master and Little Maiden.  All they wanted to do was hold the chicks.  They still ask now but the novelty has worn off a little.

I had to pick up a waterer and feeder today.  The pie plate was becoming perilous as they would slip and slide in and out to eat their mash.  I put shavings in their box yesterday since they’ve established eating the mash.  I’ve read that chicks might start eating the shavings if they haven’t learned what they’re supposed to eat.  Anyway, since I put shavings in the box, they’ve really enjoyed scratching and filled their water bowls several times with shavings.  It took a little bit of time for the chicks to figure out where their food went but once one found it the others were eager to get their share. 

I stopped into the LFS this afternoon with the rest of the family.  The kids always like to go there because there are always animals; chicks, goats, and the jumbo rabbit that lives there.  Honestly, the bunny is almost as big as Little Maiden.  The LFS had some more chicks in and some really cute ducklings.  When I asked, my chicks still weren’t in yet.  But the Post Office was still open so there was a chance that they’d be in later in the day.  They assured me that I’d get a phone call as soon as the chicks arrived.  We went back home and were getting ready for special services at church.  The LFS called just before we needed to leave for church.  So Little Maiden and I jumped into the car and sped to town. 

The LFS put all 8 chicks in a tiny box to carry them home in.  I picked up some pine shavings at the same time.  When we returned home, GH helped set up the box and drop light in the kitchen.  We lined it with newspaper for the time being.  I put some mash in a pie plate and some water in two small glass bowls.  Then we gated the dog in another room and ran out the door to church.  The chicks were all still alive when we got home.  That’s a good sign!

So now that we have chicks coming, we are trying to figure out where we are going to keep them.  We live in a suburb of the city of Bangor, so we are sort of in the country.  Not like the country I grew up in, but there are trees and critters and birds (other than pigeons and crows).  We have 1.6 acres of land.  Some of that is wooded.  We have neighbors on either side of us.  Our neighbor on the right is separated from us by a wide stretch of trees.  Our neighbor on the left, however, is not separated from us at all.  We actually share the lawn with them.  Our property line runs right down the middle, so we are trying to be considerate.

We plan to have a fenced in run so that we can keep our chickens safe from predators and so that we can keep the chicken dropping mostly contained to one area.  Especially since Little Maiden and I are very fond of going barefoot in the summer.  So, my original thought was to build a small coop behind our garage.  There they would be out of the way and still have plenty of space.  A couple of concerns have popped up, though.  One is how much are materials for a coop going to cost and two is where are we going to put our swimming pool?  We’ve always put our little swimming pool behind the garage because it’s surrounded by trees and offers a lot of privacy.  There really isn’t anywhere else to put it that’s not out in the open.  We’d have to give up the swimming pool.  And then the other thing… Well, to say that our finances are tight would be an understatement.  We could probably scrounge enough scrap wood for a small coop.

I put these questions to my husband.  He asked if I thought the chickens would bother the gardens.  Last spring I experimented with Square Foot Gardening.  I have two 4×4 foot garden frames to the left of the house, close to the property line.  I think the chickens my trample the small plants.  GH (Geek Husband) said that he had thought of building the coop off of the small out building by the gardens.  The out building holds our riding lawn mower, our small collection of gardening tools and odd and ends of the kid’s summer toys.  The out building resembles a small barn so we’ve always called it the baby barn.  "Actually, the baby barn would be a perfect chicken coop," I said.  "Truthfully," GH returned, "we only need it for the lawn mower."  We discussed finding somewhere else to keep the lawn mower.  Then we’d have a ready-made coop.  All we’d have to do is add the fencing, nesting boxes, and perches.  So that’s what we’ve decided on.  We’ll get the baby barn chicken ready, park the lawn mower somewhere else and still keep our swimming pool.  Problem solved!

I started doing some research online today.  I found a few websites that help with the basics.  Backyardchickens.com has a lot of helpful information on what to do with your baby chicks.  There are instructions on building coops and making your own chicken feeder and waterer. 

I also talked to my friend and chicken authority, Willhimenia.    She’s raised chickens for years and will be on call when my chicks arrive.  I’m getting four Rhode Island Reds and four White Leghorns.  I had originally wanted Buff Orpingtons and Black Australorps.  I was going to order them from Mcmurrayhatchery.com but they have a minimum order of 25 chicks!  I was originally thinking of getting just 6.  I found another place that had a minimum of 15 chicks.  But still, that was a few more than I wanted to start with.  So, Willhi told me to check our LFS (local feed store). 

When I went in yesterday I found that they weren’t getting either breed in.  So I picked up an order form for May (they had one for June also).  I took it to the back of the store and stared at the list of breeds that they offered.  Honestly, I didn’t know what the difference was from any of them unless the colors red, black or white were included in their names.  Luckily, on the shelf by my head was a book called Pocketful of Poultry.  I was able to look up the names in that book to see what the chicken breeds looked like but also if they were good egg layers.  That was kind of the point in getting some hens.  So anyway, I decided on the Rhode Island Reds that are great layers and lay brown eggs and the White Leghorns that lay white eggs.  The eight pullets cost me a grand total of $23.92 at $2.99 each.  My first and most important expense of this adventure! 

I was told that the chicks will be in the third week of May but I could call during the first or second week to find out exactly what day they chicks would be arriving.  Hopefully that will give me enough time to prepare!

I’m so excited!  I feel like I’ve just signed adoption papers.  We’ve thought about this for a while.  We’ve discussed it as a family, my husband, my two kids and myself.  I mean, this could really change us.  But we finally made the decision and in the third week of May we’ll be getting eight brand new babies!  Don’t worry. I’m not the new Octo-mom.  I don’t have any book deals and no one’s offering big money for my story.  Today, we ordered chickens!

I won’t pretend, I’ve never had chickens before and I really don’t know much about keeping chickens.  But something about hard times and economic pressures has prompted me to want to do more for ourselves and to return to my roots.  I’m a country girl and it’s true that you can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl.  I’m not talking buyou country, I’m talking about Maine country.  The woodlands.

So anyway, I thought some hens to provide eggs might be a great adventure and a good learning experience for my kids.  Young Master is seven years old and Little Maiden is four.  They are also very excited!  What a great way to have some quality family time… preparing for chicks!