Here, chick, chick, chick!

 

I wasn’t expecting the chicks today, but they arrived today.  No worries, though, we had all the supplies ready to go and it only took Eric and Dash 15 minutes to get the brooder set up.  By the time I returned from the post-office, everything was in place. 

This year, we are raising the Cornish Rock X for meat.  To supplement the laying flock, 5 Barred Rock and 5 Buff Orpington were added to the order.  All arrived lively and ready to eat/drink.  They do have wing feathers coming in, so they are not ‘brand’ new; thank goodness they all arrived safely. 

The Cornish Rock X are a lighter yellow and are distinguishable from the Buff Orpington in that the Buff’s have a slightly darker, more orange coloring.  The Barred Rocks are black.

They will live in their water tank brooder for 2-3 weeks and then be moved to the Wahoo.  Last year the chicks were separated into two brooders, and then joined together in a large cardboard enclosure in our house garage while we worked on the Wahoo.  They weren’t moved out until they were about 4 weeks, maybe 5 weeks, old.  They made a mess … dust all over everything.  So, the Wahoo is ready this year, and the goal is to move them out sooner.

Only Louis was out to see the chicks while they were introduced to the brooder.  Angelina, Zeke, and Graham are still under the weather.  Dash, the resident 14yo, was doing his schoolwork (I think!) and this is old-hat.  Louis wasn’t sure what to make of all the noise … he thought they were super cute, though, and chattered away while I worked to introduce them to water and chick feed.

Ahhh, it’s so much fun to have babies around the farm yard!

 

*I wrote this post days ago and am just now getting it posted, but last week was nuts!!  Sick kids, lots of laundry, baby birds, prepping for the weekend, travel and meetings on Thursday, it never ends, does it??  It’s all generally good, but hectic.  I’m sure you can relate.