End of Week 1



 We've officially been chicken owners for a week now, and I must say it's been a very interesting adventure so far (to say the least).. It's amazing how cute, adorable and full of energy baby chicks are. They are overly adventurous too. I found the latter one out today when one of the baby chicks decided to try to fly (yes fly) out of the brooder today. The baby chick (we suspect is a male) took a leap and flapped his wings and made it about an inch from the top of the brooder area. Thankfully he/she was not successful in their efforts because we have a very fat cat who loves to sit under the brooder area and watch the chicks play and run. It would really break my heart to find one of my babies missing or worse dead. I've really become quite attached to the babies. They are so much fun to watch. They are full of energy and will run around and play in the brooder area practically all day long. They love to watch tv (yes they watch tv) and stare at me when I come close to the brooder. I guess I should explain how they are seeing me and watching tv. We have a large 200 gallon fish aquarium that measures 6 foot x 1 1/2 foot. This large fish aquarium sits atop a metal stand that puts the top of the fish aquarium at about 4 1/2 foot tall. This fish aquarium (aka brooder) has been equipped with a nice heat lamp (red bulb), newspaper bottom with small layer of pine shavings and a nice thermometer (to make sure the temp is exactly right for the babies). The brooder sits in my living room agains the wall furtherest from the door (in order to prevent drafts on the babies).. Our 60' tv sits on the opposite wall and the chicks will line up at the aquarium glass and watch the tv. Its quite hilarious to watch.



Baby chicks the day we brought them home.. 4 Rhode Island Red chicks (reddish ones) and 4 Buff Orphington chicks (yellow chicks)..









Chicks at approx. 2 weeks old..



What you lookin' at?



Zero, our amazing resident cat.



  So I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but we found out that the babies we bought from TSC were approximately a week to week and half old when we purchased them. So by all accounts that would make our babies aprox. going to be 3 weeks old in a few days. I look forward to the adventures that are yet to come with the chicks.. For now, I'd like to say thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope that you will come back to see my future post <3

The adventure begins...

  Welcome to my page. To start I'd like to explain just how this blog got started. My husband and I have been contemplating starting the adventure of raising chickens for 3 years now. This year we decided to take the plunge. We purchased 8 baby chicks from the local TSC. We have 4 Rhode Island Red chicks and 4 Buff Ophington chicks. When we purchased them we were told they were all pullets (females). We have set them up a nice brooder area to keep them warm and happy.

 So anyways, we've had the baby chicks 4 days now. The chick-a-dees are doing great. They are full of adventure and personality. I never would have thought that chickens could be so full of personality. I've watched them now for 4 days and i've noticed that each one has its own personality. We have several that are proven leaders. They like to peck at the other chicks and push them around. Its like they are literally ordering them around. It's quite funny to watch them run around the brooder area and play. They will stretch out their wings and act like they are trying to fly. On another note, today we started to suspect that not all of our supposed pullets are females. We believe we have 3 stow-a-way roosters in our midst. However, its really too early to tell at this point. We're gonna just have to wait until the babies get a little older before we can tell for sure.

  Other than that we're starting to plan out our chicken coop. We know it's way too early to put them out just yet, but we want to be ready when they are ready to go out. Hubby and I have picked out an amazing coop that will be just perfect for our baby chickadees. I'm really excited to get to work on the project. Hubby and I have both agreed to equally work on the coop building project. We both love to work on projects and building things so it's going to be an interesting project. We hope to be able to get started on the project in the next couple of weeks. I'll update more on that as the progress continues.

 So I guess that's about all I have to say for today. Again, thank you for viewing my blog, and I hope you will come back to see the updates and progress of our adventures in chicken raising. :)