Happy Hen Treats

Just got an email from www.mypetchicken.com declaring it Chicken Mania 2010. To celebrate this exciting event/holiday/marketing exercise, they're offering a deal on dried meal worms (dried for those of us who are too squeamish to handle live meal worms). I'm thinking dried or not, I'm not too keen on handling any type of meal worm.

What do you think?

THE Cake

My oldest turned 8 yesterday, and to celebrate he is having a birthday party with a couple of his friends at a local laser tag joint. I've been asking him all week what type of cake he'd like at his party thinking that it's going to be Star Wars or sports themed (go Sox!). Nope. What type of cake does he want? Well a chicken cake of course!

A CHICKEN CAKE????

Yes, a chicken cake!

So I called a couple of bakeries and heard a lot of laughing before finally figuring out that the only real option I have is to do a photo cake. You know, the ones where they superimpose a picture on a sheet cake? So now all I need is a cute picture of a chicken. Easy enough, right? Ummm, not really.

First I try Google images, but I quickly find that most of the images are either too low a resolution or you can't easily crop them to a standard 4 x 6 size. My only option is to snap my own picture. So down to the brooder we go to scoop up four chicks, one of each breed. We bring them upstairs and then try herding them together for a lovely group shot... I think herding cats would be somewhat easier than chicks!

Fortyfour snaps and a lot (I mean a LOT) of chicken poop later, I finally manage to get a picture that's passable for Flynn's cake.

The picture that will be gracing Flynn's 8th birthday cake is posted at the top. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the cake looks halfway decent!

In the Jailhouse Now

It's official: the chicks have moved to the big house. No, I don't mean the chicken coop -- they're much too small for that! I mean that they are in the jailhouse now. Let me explain...

I came home yesterday morning to find one lonely Buff Orpington standing outside the brooder looking very lost and confused. The chick was desperately trying to get back in, but couldn't figure out how. Yep, the chicks can already fly out of our little brooder. Luckily, I hadn't been gone for long, so the chick was returned to safety unharmed, but we did have to take drastic measures to make sure that no one else got left out in the cold.

To keep everyone in, we surrounded the brooder with some orange fencing we had hanging around. It works great even if it looks like the chicks are now in prison.

Liam and the Sussex

Look at these feathers! I took one of the Speckled Sussex out of the brooder to take a couple of pictures. The Sussex's feathers are really coming in and they look the most dramatic of all the breeds we have.

My three year old was just enthralled to see the chick in his space, upstairs in the playroom. The chick was not as enthusiatic: In the video, you can see her chirping madly trying to locate her flock.


No worries -- we returned the chick to the brooder right after this was shot!

Newbie Mistake Avoided by Accident!

Phew! The biggest problem to being new at something is you often don't know what you don't know. And in this case, ignorance is not bliss. My chicken-guru friend Catherine recommended that when I ordered my chicks that I get them vaccinated for coccidiosis. I didn't really know what that was, but I trusted Catherine and followed her advice.

Six weeks later, I went to buy feed for the chicks, and coccidiosis couldn't have been further from my mind. When the nice guy at Agway asked whether I wanted feed with or without antibiotics, I had no idea, so I said "with." We then pulled up to the loading dock to get the 50-pound bag of feed. It was pouring, and we motioned to just stick it in the back and wouldn't you know it, the guy loaded the wrong type of feed.

The next day we had to go to New Hampshire for a family event and managed to find a nearby Agway. We were desperate to get food as the chicks were arriving the next day. This particular Agway carried a completely different line of feed, and I had only one choice for baby chicks: a Poulin Grain crumble with definitely no antibiotics added. As it turned out, luck was on my side!

It turns out that if you get your chicks vaccinated for coccidiosis, you should not give them feed with antibiotics as it wipes out the vaccine. Makes sense when you think about it. Besides, if your aim in raising chickens is to do so organically, you don't want to be loading them up with antibiotic feed anyway.

Oh and I finally did figure out what coccidiosis is. Coccidiosis is a common protozoan parasite that is found in almost all chicken yards. It can lay dormant for years and pop up when chickens are introduced. Heavy infections of coccidia can kill chickens and most commonly affects young chickens (4-16 weeks). I'm kind of attached to my chicks now and wouldn't want anything icky happen to them.

Moral of the story: Learn from my almost mistake!

Let Me See You Shake a Tail Feather!

Yesterday, Charlotte was the first one down to see the chicks. As quick as can be, she came running back up the stairs yelling "Guys! Guys! You just gotta see this -- the chicks grew tail feathers!" And sure enough, the little peeps popped out tail feathers overnight. It is amazing to see how quickly my little guys are growing up. Just brings a tear to your eye.

Strangely, it also makes me kinda want to dance to a little Ray Charles/Blues Brothers...

Dominique? Perhaps Dominic...

So we're starting to wonder whether one of our Dominiques is a male. When I ordered my chicks, I purchased only pullets (females). The chicks are sexed at birth, and usually they are pretty accurate, but sometimes males do slip through.

The kids named the biggest and fastest chick Google (go figure!), and she/he is really the only one we can distinguish from the other Dominiques because of both size and the markings on his head. While all the other Dominiques have black heads with a fairly distinct white or yellow spot, Google's spot is less distinct and more scattered -- almost as if he has gone prematurely gray.

I then started reading about sex-linked characteristics of Dominiques and found out that the head spot on the cockerels (males) is larger and more scattered, while the pullets' head spot is smaller and more compact. Not only that, but the cockerels have yellow shanks (legs), while the pullets have a grayish or blackish coloration on the shanks and toes. Well guess what??? All the other Dominiques have a blackish coloring on their legs, but not our Google, who as you can see in the picture has nice yellow legs. Hmmm....

Dominique or Dominic? Only time will tell!

Secretly, I'm excited about the possibility of accidentally getting a rooster to throw in mix. Unfortunately, I'm not sure our neighbors are going to feel the same when the crowing begins at sun up...

The Feathers Are Coming! The Feathers Are Coming!

The chicks are officially one week old today. The kids sang happy birthday to them so loudly that the chicks ran away and cowered in fear at the far side of the brooder.

Good times, good times.

Feathers are popping out all over the brooder. These little guys are getting their wings - literally!

Kamikaze Buffs

Two of my Buff Orpintons are desperately trying to fly the coop. I've caught them several times rushing the side of brooder, wings flapping furiously. They do manage to get some air, but luckily not enough to get past the walls. I do hope they're safe, especially at night when we're not there to check on them. I just added a video of one of the Speckled Sussex trying to escape. Apparently the Buffs were having such a good time that the Sussex joined in.

Looks Like We Made It!

Check out our brooder!

I am happy to report that all the chicks made it through their first night with us and seem pretty happy.

About four of the birds are pasting up, which is when the bird's vent (a.k.a. pooper) gets clogged up with dried poop. Unfortunately, pasting up can be deadly to a chick. The remedy? Gently removing the dried poop with a wet paper towel. Honestly, it's not as bad as it sounds...Really!

The kids are getting to be pros in spotting "pasty butt."

One word of warning: Some of the chicks still have their umbilical cords attached. This looks like a thin black thread hanging just below their vents. It is not pasting up. The umbilical cord should not be removed and will fall off on its own.

It's Christmas Morning All Over Again

The kids are waaaaay overexcited that the chicks are here. They love the little creatures. Liam, my three year old, keeps saying "Mom, you are the best giver ever." Just melts your heart. I think this day is going to one of those days they remember for a long time to come.

On the down side, the kids are finding it hard to slow down and be gentle. We had a small accident and lost one of the chicks. Charlotte cried and cried for well over an hour. Not sure she bought the whole chick heaven thing, where baby birds are held by five-year-old girls all day long...but she did get over it eventually. All the kids seemed a bit too excited by the prospect of a bird funeral...

One of our chicks seems like it may be pasting up. More on that later.

They're Here!

I finally picked up the chicks this morning!

I kept farmer's hours this morning by getting up at five to fetch my chicks from the regional distribution center of the US Post Office. Luckily, it's only the next town over. When I finally found Door 15 in the behemouth of a post office, I found out that the chicks had already been shipped out to my local office. Back into the car I ran to pick up the chicks at post office #2. They were in this tiny box, peeping away madly. So incredibly cute! Of course, I later read that loud chirping means the poor things are under distress.

I got them home and couldn't wait to check them out. My husband, Bill, also got a chance to peek in on them before he headed off to the airport for a four-day stint doing booth duty in Lost Wages, NV.

We ordered four different breeds: 7 White Leghorns, 7 Buff Orpingtons, 6 Dominiques, and 6 Speckled Sussex. The chicks all look different, ranging from light yellow to black with a white patch on the head, so it's easy to tell the breeds apart.

Next step, onto the brooder once it's heated up!

Names for the Baby Chicks

The kids are so excited for the arrival of the chicks. We just set up the brooder - our old kiddie pool, with a heat lamp, and some shavings. It's like Christmas Eve at our house.

So what are the kids most looking forward to? Naming the chicks of course.
Charlotte and Flynn's top name picks are Google, Bobby, Andrew, Cluck, Cutie, Peeper, Pecker*, and Pauline (after our favorite fowl themed book My Life as a Chicken).

Of course, we won't be able to tell the baby chicks apart for a while, so naming will have to wait, but it's fun to be creative!


*Originally, I thought about naming my blog Peterson's Peckers, but that just seemed wrong...

Panic...

...and not at the disco!

Just got a call from the post office that my little peeps have arrived! Very exciting, but I wasn't expecting them for a few more days and I am heading to NH to attend my neice's first communion.

The chicks are going to have to wait until tomorrow. I hope they are all right.

I could hear them chirping in the background. They sounded very cute!

Where to Start? How to Start?

Suddenly deciding to raise chickens can seem a bit scary, but we planned to raise only six or so hens. How hard could that be? Luckily, I have an excellent resource in my friend Catherine.

If I'm crazy, then Catherine is bona fide cuckoo (sorry Catherine!). At last count, Catherine has three cats, four goats, two dogs (one with only three legs), countless chickens and ducks, and a goose named Oscar who sits on her front stoop and honks at people. And all of this in her backyard...

Catherine answered countless questions and steered me toward her hatchery of choice, Murray McMurray (are Murray's parents mean or what?). She also lent me her most recent copy of Backyard Poultry Magazine (who knew?). This combined with some books from the library, and I'm starting to feel like I can actually do this.

Now I just needed to order the chicks, figure out a brooder, and find a coop somewhere. Fun stuff!

This was really happening. The kids were so excited. It was early March 2010, but it already felt like spring!