I am the chick fil Ayeeee!

Ever since I got the house Tamara has been wanting chickens. Since spring is upon us and we now have time to take care of chicks, we went downtown to pick up some chicks and bring em home. Ohhh yea. A few weeks ago we found out that we can have up to six chickens within city limits without a permit, as long as they're all hens. We have no problem with that, as I would shoot a rooster eventually what with his damn noise.

We picked some babies up on 3/7, and three more on 3/12. They were literally born yesterday. I tried to sell them the new stimulus package and even they still didn't go for it. There's three bantam Americanas ("Easter Egg Chicken"), and two bantam cochins color as of yet unknown, and later I picked up two standard sized New Hampshire Reds. Tamara dotes over them like the newborns they are. It's so cute!!

This is all seven chicks. The red tint is to keep them from pecking at each other. Apparently white light drives them crazy and can turn them to cannibalism. Aren't babies cute?

Om nom nom nom

Here's a better picture of all the chicks. The black ones are the Cochins, the three white ones towards the back are the Americaunas, and the strawberry blonde ones are the standard size New Hampshire Reds. We're pretty certain at this point two of the Americaunas are roosters because they're getting elongated, and have different plumage than the smaller round white one. We're giving them to the feed store in a few weeks.


Here's the two New Hampshire Reds the day I picked them up. They were scared shitless, the poor dears. It was a very traumatic day for them, I'm sure. Charlie was soooo upset I wouldn't let him play with them. Uhm, NO KITTY! Kitties don't play with baby chickens!


This is the blast furnace I designed at first for the chicks to live in. OK not really a blast furnace, but it looks like it, doesn't it? It's a styrofoam cooler I found under the deck with chicken wire over the top and attached with wood and screws. Good thing too because Tamara found both cats sitting on top looking into it! Needless to say we moved the chicks to Tamara's place until they're big enough to fight the cats.




We aren't going to name them until we can tell what sex they are. The 2nd batch I picked up are already sexed, so we know they will be pullets. The first five were not sexed, so we don't know how many, if any, roosters we'll get. We don't want to name all the chickens, only to get a pullet surprise, if you know what I mean. The names we're going to use are Noodle, Nugget, and Patty. I'm also partial to the names General Tso and Charles. I'm not sure about the last one, as Charlie the Cat may take umbrage to Charles Chicken. Maybe I'll use Swee'Ensaur or Kung Pow instead. Yes, I realize these are all food names, but we got them as layers, not meat chickens.

Unless they piss me off.

I have some ideas for the chicken coop and we have some poultry netting, but I want to get some sturdy sheep fencing for the outside to keep the coons out (raccoons are clever). I'm thinking http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=10217-Coop_and_Run is the perfect size and shape, and will line up wonderfully against the back wall of the garage.