Check out these hot chicks!

[sholio]

... sorry, couldn't help myself.

This spring I ordered chicks through the feed store and I got a call yesterday that my chicks were in! They're Ameracaunas, the chickens that lay "colored" eggs (blue and green) -- well, not really purebred, more like mutt chickens with the colored egg trait. Chicks are hatched at nurseries and then shipped to their final destinations, since day-old chicks can go for a day or so without food or water. I wasn't sure if it would just be my 10 chicks in a box, but the feed store had a whole bin of them (they said they'd just gotten six dozen Ameracaunas in) and so they picked out 10 active, healthy chicks in various colors for me.

I grew up on a farm, but our little backyard flock always brooded their own chicks, so I've never raised chicks before, and I think I was half-afraid that they'd all drop dead immediately. But it's been 24 hours since I brought them home and they seem to like their new digs, so ... here they are!

The picture quality is terrible, I'm afraid, because their brooder is on the garage floor with a heat lamp above it. Also, I didn't want to crowd them too much, since they're still a bit stressed from all the upheavals over the last day or two. Which is, admittedly, the only day or two they've been alive. I still can't get over how active they are. I guess I was expecting them to be a little more passive, but they're in constant motion and the Internet says that they'll let me know if they're too cold or too hot by peeping loudly. Which they haven't been, just making little twittering noises, but I heard the loud peeps when they were stuffed into a cardboard box to be transported home, so I know they can do it. I guess they must be happy.





I made the brooder out of (yes, really) an old WWII ammo box. Actually ... if you watched Sanctuary the other night? The box that the autotype was buried in? The chicks are in a box just like that. *g* With a hundred-watt bulb and some random wire mesh that we had laying around. Actually, it's all stuff that we had laying around, which is why it looks like a heap of junk. I used metal items because I was a little bit worried about causing a fire hazard, but that was when I still expected to use a 250-watt heat lamp rather than just the 100-watt bulb, which turned out to be plenty. Newly hatched baby chicks are supposed to be kept at 95 degrees and I wasn't sure if it would be enough. Turns out it's overkill for such a small space. I had to raise it a bit to keep from being too hot underneath.

One more with the mesh off:



Husband commented when he saw them that he wasn't expecting them to look so much like Marshmallow Peeps - just the same shape and size. "I guess they're true to life, then."

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Comments

[artemis-prime.livejournal.com]

They are cute! What will you do with them as adults? Are they just for egg laying or meat, too?

[sholio]

Thanks! :) Mostly they're for egg laying, but I got a few more than our henhouse actually has room for, so some of them are destined for, um, a different fate.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Chick chicks! I find that having chickens makes you rather inventive. We've made brooders out of all kinds of things (old fish tank, bird cage, this year we used a huge Rubber Maid box and chicken wire), as well as chicken coops (renovated dog run this time, and home made hen house).

Your little brown-striped chicks look a lot like our Bantaams did when they were chicks, only slightly bigger.

[sholio]

Baby chicks are so cute. :D

A lot of Internet sites suggested a Rubbermaid container. I went with the ammo box because I was worried about the fire hazard, but now that I've seen that there really isn't much danger with such a small lightbulb, I might try something like that (or just a large cardboard box) when I need to upgrade them to something bigger.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Adorable!

[sholio]

Aren't they, though? :)

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Heeeee, SO CUTE!!

[sholio]

Thanks! ^_^

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Awww, adorable! The little stripey ones especially...

Hmmm, do you know if they're hens or roosters yet? Can you sex chicks at all?

[sholio]

I like the stripey ones best. ^_^

Supposedly they're all hens (they were sexed at the hatchery). But it's hard to tell with chicks, so apparently a rooster or two can slip in.

[sophia-sol.livejournal.com]

You have baby chickens! That is AWESOME. Also they are adorable.

(I pretty much anticipate that my future will involve owning chickens somehow.)

[sholio]

Hee! Thank you!

I've been really enjoying our chickens. Technically I only keep them for the eggs, but they're awfully amusing as well -- not quite pets, but fun to watch.

[skinscript.livejournal.com]

They're adorable! I wish I had room for my own chickens like I did growing up, but alas... it is not to be.

[sholio]

Thanks! :) Maybe someday you might.

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Eeee! Tiny huddle of chicklets ftw! *beams*

[sholio]

I can't stop watching them. It's so sad. :D

[trystings.livejournal.com]

Aww, the one with its little butt to the camera! They're adorable!

[sholio]

So cuuuuuute!

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

Whatever you do DON'T give them names! :)

[sholio]

Hee! Yeah, probably not a good idea.

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

But thrn you are a farm girl too if I remember correctly :)

[sentientcitizen]

Eee! So adorable! I desperately want to own chickens someday, for the eggs. Currently my city has bylaws wherin one cannot keep them in one's backyard, buuuut people do anyways, and they're working on getting bylaws changed. So maybe by the time I have a proper yard of my own, I'll be able to put chickens in it.

[sholio]

Good luck getting the bylaws changed! :) I know people who have successfully kept chickens in neighborhoods where they technically weren't allowed, as long as the neighbors were okay with it. It's only a problem if someone complains, right?

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Awww, so cute! I googled the colored eggs and they look very funny.

[sholio]

Don't they? I can't wait to see what they look like in real life. :D (My mom says that a couple of the chickens in the flock we had when I was a kid laid blue eggs, but I don't remember that.)

[naye]

AWWW~! Stripey! Downy! ♥

[sholio]

SO FLUFFY. ♥

[frith_in_thorns]

I love chicks :D My favourite lab session in my undergrad course so far was when we investigated behaviour in chicks, which were dyed different colours with food dye to help us randomise our sampling - a whole long afternoon of cuddling blue, green, pink and yellow chicks! &hearts

That is my rambling way of saying that I'm very envious of your new friends, and I hope you enjoy their company!

[sholio]

Hee! That sounds completely adorable. And fun. :)

I can't believe how much fun I'm having watching them. I mean, all they're doing is running around eating, peeping and pooping. But it's SO ENTERTAINING.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

BABY CHICKENS!!!!!!!!

<3

[sholio]

<3 <3 <3

[leesa_perrie]

Chicks!!! Sooo cute!! And fluffy!! I bet they're lovely to hold!

I'm not going to ask where you got a WWII ammo box from... no, actaully, I am! Where did you get a WWII ammo box from?!! *g*

[sholio]

They're SO fluffy. :)

And my husband is kind of a junk collector. Most likely he got it at a junk auction (he buys quite a bit of random stuff in big lots) or picked it up from the scrap metal bins at the transfer site. (We're kind of rural and we don't use a trash collection service; instead our part of the highway is served by a big fenced area with a lot of dumpsters/skips, including one for metal objects, and people are just as likely to haul stuff away as to drop it off!)

[leesa_perrie]

Ahhh, a junk collector! Useful junk, by the looks of it!! My hubby has a small collection of wooden bits that 'might come in useful' - and occasionally he's right!! (It's only small due to lack of storage space, I suspect!)

[vogelein.livejournal.com]

If you're planning on raising chicks again, may I recommend a child's playpen? That's what my cousin used when he was raising chicks for 4-H. It's easy to hose out, and folds up for future use. Probably best to store it outside.

Oh, and as long as you use b/w newspaper (as opposed to 4-color) you can throw the soiled paper right into your compost pile. Chicken manure is great fertilizer once it's composted, and the newspaper should break down about as fast as the poo.

[sholio]

Oh, that's a good idea! Actually, I'm still trying to find something that's a good size for the size they are now; they outgrew the ammo box fairly quickly, and now they're in a "condo" made from cardboard boxes.

And I hadn't thought about composting the newspaper; that's an excellent idea! I'm about to switch them to sawdust bedding, but they're still kind of ... eating it a lot, so I switched back to newspapers temporarily until they figure out that not everything lying on the ground is food.