New Baby Chicks

For some reason, raising chickens has always been something I've dreamed about, but since I lived in the city, I thought it wasn't possible. Now at the ripe old age of 29 (still living in the city), I purchased 4 perfect babies. Did a good bit of research and discovered chickens are legal in the city (most at least) and decided on two breeds: Amerecauna's and Rhode Island Red's. Amerecauna's lay blue and green eggs and the birds come in all sorts of color patterns and sizes, but they usually have these cute little beards (fuzzy cheeks). Rhode Island Reds lay plenty of brown eggs and their featers are reddish/brown (very pretty). Both breeds are known to have good personalities.

When we purchased the chicks, they had just hatched. Matter-oh-fact, they were still wet. The farmer had eggs in an incubator hatching, so you could watch, wait, and carry home if you wanted (very cool). This was at the Chicken & Egg Festival in Moulton, Alabama. The chicks had a two hour ride ahead of them. It became clear, right away, how much they wanted to be warm. So each of us held one in our laps on the way home. They seemed to like that very much. They're pretty easy to read, really. They peep very loudly when they're unhappy sort of like realy babies (substitute peeping for crying).

Once we were home, they didn't seem to understand food and water just yet, so we dipped their beaks in water a few and finally it clicked. They've been eating, drinking, and pooping non-stop ever since. Truly it's amazing how much such small chicks can eat. At one day old, they were already eating a full handful of food/day.

After more time went by, it became pretty clear one of the baby chiks was having a trouble walking. She peeped a lot more than the others (thus her name, Peepers). She didn't eat as much as the others either and eventually became too weak to move aruond. So we started hand feeding / watering her, and she slowly regained her energy. At age 11 days, she still isn't using her leg (and now the joint is swollen, it seems from leaning on it and jumping around), but she does ok on one foot and eats plenty now. She's still much smaller than the others and seems to be at the bottom of the totum pole and always seems to need more rest than the others (more work hopping on one foot), but I think she'll be OK. Checked back with the Chick Farmer and he said sometimes this happens and that chickens can end up living with the use of only one leg. We'll see. She'll always be in a small group.

Anyhow, we were at Ed's Pet World in Homewood (Suburbia Homewood) and they had two baby chicks they were trying to give away. They seemed about the same size as our 4 10-day old baby chicks, so Mark brought them home. Well these two new chicks, I'm pretty sure, weren't doted on non-stop the way our 4 were, and boy do they not like us very much. We've only had them for 1 full day now, but they still peep ALL the time. Our other chicks only seem to peep loudly when they are unhappy, so I can only assume that these new baby chicks are unhappy. It was kind of funny, b/c when we first introduced the 2 new chicks, our seemingly senior chick, Ruby, went nuts! She chased and chased the two new ones around the brood. Figured they were too young for the pecking order, but apparently not. They don't really peck so much, but they certainly make it known whose boss when it's feeding time.

Now to get a coop built! Anyhow, I'll post more in the near future. That's all for now.