Little Farmstead: I'm not the only chick on the farm anymore… (serious cuteness ahead!)

Sunday, April 13, 2014

I'm not the only chick on the farm anymore… (serious cuteness ahead!)

Hi Friends!

Happy brand new week! How are you? I hope that our latest farm additions will bring you a smile… We decided to keep chickens so that we could learn, as a family, the joys and responsibilities of caring for them. We also love the idea of farm fresh eggs!

The boys and I were very excited to pick out some chicks this past weekend. "Charlotte" (yellow) is a Delaware. "Lucy" (light brown) is an Ameraucana who will lay colored eggs, God-willing. "Sadie" (pictured further down) is a Barred Rock.

In a few days, we'll be adding a few Silkies (because they look like they are wearing slippers and we just can't get over it!). Do we sound like serious farmers yet?

For all of you who may be considering chicks, we learned that you can keep pretty much any type of chickens together, as long as they grow up together. If a new chicken is added later, they will often get picked on by the rest of the flock. We were also told that it should be fine for us to add Silkies as long as we do it within a week or so.

When my husband saw these pictures, he said, "You know how they say boys never really grow up? I don't think girls really do either." (Girls, have you EVER met a baby anything you didn't like? And, it's not easy for me to admit, but I'm sort of drawn to miniatures… be it toy trucks, houses, clothes pins…come to think of it, even our blog title, "Little Farmstead" - tell me I'm not alone!)

For now, our chicks are enjoying the indoors with their heat lamp and life at 90 degrees. We'll decrease the temperature 5 degrees each week until it reaches 70 degrees. (See how confident I'm sounding?)

In 5 or 6 weeks, when they are fully feathered-out, they will move into their chicken coop. That's a whole other story… let's just say we've got lots of work to do! I'll post before and after pictures when the coop is finished.