Chickens: 7 weeks old and full of sass.

Wow! The chickens are growing.  They are still just as friendly as they ever were, but they sure are sure of themselves.  When I first put them outside in their coup during the day, the neighborhood cats scared the crap out of them.  Now they have figured out the cats can't get in, so they taunt them.  It is ridiculous.  I will try to get a video of it one of these days. One of the neighbors likes to come over and feed them grass from her hand.  They tear into it with gusto, only occasionally missing and pecking her hand.  I feed them from my hands every day so they learn to come when I call them.  I give them grass, weeds, or just their crumbles.

Here are Fluffy (who is the least fluffy of them all now, by the way) and Ginger.  They are sitting on their outside perch.  This is where they have been sleeping at night.  I have been trying to get them to go in the little coup house at night.  They like to run in there when they get scared, but it is very hot in there when it is 90 degrees outside, so they prefer the outdoor roost.

This is Brie and Lilith.  They are the most friendly and curious.  In this picture they have run over to see what treats I might have for them.

Look at those girls.  They are running over because I just opened to the door to the run.  Shortly after this they pecked the camera to see if it tasted good. I am loving that they are outdoors all day and night now.   They were getting too messy and smelly for keeping in the house.  All of our neighbors love them.  One neighbor said she is thinking of getting some herself.  My evil plan is working.

Chicken Update: Two weeks old

Okay, remember last week I posted pictures of each chick showing the progress of their feather growth and the color patterns on their feet? I thought I would do that again today to give you an update.  The best laid plans of mice and men (or should I say chicks and women)..... Well, anyways, I did get this cute video:

This is Lilith.  Her tail is getting huge and she is getting very forward and friendly.  She sees my arm and thinks, "there is my favorite perch again." 

We have named them all now.  Lilith and Fluffy you know. The one formerly known as poopy butt is called Brie, and the light colored reddish brown one is named Ginger.  Ginger is acting a little under the weather this week.  I have tried not to bother her too much and let her rest.  She seems better today, I hope she pulls through.  I haven't noticed any specific symptoms besides that she seems a little bit sluggish and tired compared to the others.  I have also caught her holding her wings weirdly, letting them hang a bit.  She isn't getting worse, so I will hope for the best.  I know chicks can come from the hatchery with all kinds of awful diseases.  Now that she has a name we are kind of attached to her.

Brie is almost as friendly as Lilith and will also come when called:

This is not the first video I made of Brie, I have to admit.  In the first on she ran right over and jumped in my hand.  Then I bumped the side wall of the photo set and the whole thing came crashing down.  No chicks were harmed in the making of that film, but she was pretty scared.  It took me a few minutes to get her to do it again. Poor Brie.  She really is a sweetie.

Fluffy is not as tame, but she will also sit on my hand and balance.  She still has no tail.  She also has developed a little balding spot on the back of her neck.  Don't worry no one pecks her.  She is just making a very awkward transition to her, hopefully, beautiful feathers.

They are really starting to poop and eat more these last two days.  I will need to buy them a new larger bag of food pretty soon. I have cleaned out the brooder once and it is time to do it again. I had to put a hardware cloth lid on the brooder because they were starting to look up and judge the distance to jump /fly over it.  Lilith tried to jump to me once.  They can't jump or fly that far yet, but I figured that I shouldn't wait until I find chicken poop all over my attic craft room before I make the lid.

If I can get them to stand still for even a second I will try to post some good pictures of them soon.

Here's Lilith.  I had just hopped out of the shower, so my hair is wet and there is no makeup, sorry.  Heehee

I did get this one picture that isn't too bad.  This is Brie.  She is just starting to get a tail.  She is still the heaviest and the one with the thickest legs.

I hope you enjoyed the chicken videos.  I know I enjoyed making them.  Have a nice evening.

The Chicks are Now Eight Days Old

Here they are after I threw in some sunflower sprouts from the yard.  They didn't know what to think about them.  They half heartedly pecked at them, but didn't seem to eat any.

I put them in my light box that I use for photographing my crafts and took pictures of each one.  I can tell them apart most of the time now.  Two of them have tentative names.

This little girl's is quickly becoming my favorite.  I know I shouldn't have a favorite, but I can't help it.  She is very friendly and outgoing.  I call her Lilith.

She kept walking right up to the camera and checking it out.  It made it hard to get a good picture of her.

Here you can clearly see the white next to her eye that easily sets her apart from her sisters.

 I also use the feet coloring to tell them apart sometimes. 

 Lilith has the most developed tail and wing feathers, as well.

This little girl is much more redish/brown than her sisters.  Her feet are also lighter colored. I haven't named her yet.

You can barely see the yellow middle toes.  One looks like it doesn't have any yellow.

She has the second most developed tail of the four.  Look how much red/brown she has compared to Lilith.

The next one I have been calling poopy butt, but I don't want that to end up being her name.  I hope the poopy buttness is just a phase.  I read on Backyard Chickens that the poop sometimes sticks to their feathers back there and you can just pull of the poop on their butts and take the feathers out with it without causing them too much harm, so I did it.  She is not very happy with me right now.

She is darker black on the head than the other three and has no tail feathers showing yet.

Her body type is different.  Her legs are stalkier and her butt is fatter.  I think she is the heaviest of the four.

These are her feet.  She has very striking yellow middle toes, even more so than Lilith.

And last but not least, Fluffy.  I started calling her fluffy because while the other girls were getting their feathers, she was staying fat and fluffy like the day I got her.  She does have some wing feathers now, but she is a late bloomer.

She also squeaks the most when I pick her up.

She has quite a bit of brown fluff and her butt fluff is whiter than the rest.

You can see that her feet are quite light, and she has one middle toe where the yellow extends much farther than the other.

It is hard to get a good picture of them in the brooder because of the red light, but here they all are after I had taken each of their pictures and put them back. Lilith has her eye on me.  She usually does.

More Baby Chick Pictures and a Video

 

I tried to talk my teenage daughter into holding the chicks and posing for pictures, but no luck.  I had to put them on a towel and hope they stayed still.

 

This little girl is the only one who stayed still enough to get a good picture.

Here she even sat down to rest while she stared at the camera.

You can see in the pictures that her middle toes are yellow.  You can tell them all apart by how much yellow there is on their middle toes.

I made this funny video of the chicks just doing what chicks do.  They are two days old here. I tried to get them to jump into my hand, but they were too busy.

 

These chicks sleep a lot more than I remember any other chicks of mine sleeping.  I guess they must be putting all their energy into growing.  They are eating and drinking plenty and pooping enough for an army.  They get really active, run around and make noise then they snooze for a while.  It is very cute when one is snoozing and another wakes her up.  The one that is woken looks around like, "what did I miss?"

 

I hope you enjoy the pictures and video.  They chicks will be changing so fast.  I will try to keep pictures coming.

We Got Some Chicks Today, Aren't They Cute?

It was a long trip home from the store after I bought them. I stopped by my mother-in-law's hair salon to show them to her.  When we got home, the chicks fell directly asleep under their heat lamp.  I picked each one up and showed them where the water and food are. They ate a bite or two and then fell asleep again leaning on the food container.  The one that is awake kept a very close eye on me while I photographed them.  She might be the mother hen of the bunch.

 



Here is the progress so far on the chicken coup outside.  We have a few weeks before the chicks will be ready to go out there.  We bought a coup that we just have to put together.  We are adding a foundation with a hardware cloth bottom to keep out digging predators and to have something sturdy to attach the coup to to keep out dogs and cats.  Laying cinder blocks is a very tedious heavy job. Yuck.

 

I originally wanted to get Black Jersey Giant hens, but was going to settle for Black Australorps because they are easier to get and more size appropriate.  The Black Australorps proved just as hard to get ahold of, despite every feed store in town telling me they would get them in.  They just keep getting shipments without the Black Australorps.  I finally gave in and picked a new variety.  I chose the black sex-linked cross.  My grandpa has one, and it is really friendly and beautiful.  It lays good sized brown eggs very regularly, too. I think that since we don't plan on breeding them, these will be just fine for our egg laying pets. The chicks are very cute as you can see in the above photo, and they are not scared of me at all.  They actually will step up into your hand if you put it in there.

 

I have loads to post about the yard and garden. I have been too busy working out there to post anything for a while, but I have been taking pictures.  Hopefully I will be able to take the time later today to type up a summary of what we have been up to.