What a difference a week makes!

It's not every week that you get to wake up everyday to a view of beautiful snowy mountains-oh wait, yeah we do! The main differences between this past week in Park City and a usual week in Joseph is that we had SO many restaurants to go to and no animals to take care of! While Keith was learning how to do stress tests during the day, I was going to the movies, the spa, and shopping-just about anything instead of what everyone else was there for-skiing. Even though it seems like it's been forever, all it takes is a walk down a steep hill to put me and knee in it's place!! Keith did get to go snowboarding a couple times and had a blast!

Now we're back and the chicks are huge! They had a lovely time at Liz and Nic's and were a hit at Malachi'a second birthday party. After a week the chicks have quite a few more feathers and are so much bigger!


The funny looking ones are even starting to develop their gooofy fluff!


The Bovan chicks are getting enormous! They are so much bigger than the Australorps and the crested Polish's. Still we have no idea if any of the chicks are males yet. There are a number of things written about this and pretty much we need to wait a few more weeks to see if any male traits arise or we may not figure out it for a few months...I guess we'll just wait and see!


By the end of this week the chicks will probably be moving on up into a larger box and in about two weeks (I hope!) they will be outside in the fanciest coop ever!

A week and a day

We have had the chicks for a week and a day. This means that the chicks are actually one week and two days old. And yes, we probably will be throwing a birthday party on March 14, 2012 for all the ladies! In the past few days we have learned a lot about our girlfriends!

Over the first few days I thought they would grow like mad! Realistically they just grew a little and are just now really to starting growing their feathers. Sunday was the first day they really seemed any bigger than the first day we got them and it's only the Bovan chicks that are noticeably bigger. Still every morning I notice little changes.

So here are couple of things I did not know about chicks until this week. One is that sometimes when they sleep they really, really look like they're dead. This is kind of scary when, say, you've never raised chicks before! It's also hard to get a picture of this because as soon as I try, the small click my camera makes wakes them right up. But trust me the chick in the picture below is very much alive!


And to add to the list of things I'd never heard before moving here, but now have to do on a daily basis, I have to check the chicks behinds for stuck on poo and if it's there I have to clean it off. Yes, this is pretty gross! This is pretty common and is called pasty butt and can kill the chicks. The dried poo blocks their opening and they can't poo any more and they die. Oh, and other chicks will also peck at and eat poo off each other. These are all reasons you have to clean them. And of course somehow Keith is never home when I have to do this!

Besides just being adorable, there is only very, very cute thing they do. They sleep in a massive pile of orange and black fluffiness! Seeing about 10 baby chicks all peacefully sleeping like this, at just about any time of the day, is just about the most precious thing you'll see all day!


BJ has gotten a little more curious about them, but still has absolutely no idea what to do about them. He tried licking one that I was holding, but I don't think he would try to eat it (I may be very naive about this though!)


So here is what they looked like at one week old. Notice the almost there tail feathers on the funny looking one and how freaking massive the orange one is (granted I picked the biggest one for this photo shoot!)

A little coop (coup) update. Hugh has been working on his own and been making some amazing progress. He added some trim, which makes the coop look much classier than I ever pictured!

Here is the big question! What are these ladies going to look like in the next week?? We will be as surprised as you! Keith and I are in Park City, UT (Keith is at a conference and I'm sleeping in later than usual and plan on eating massive amounts of sushi!) for a week and Liz, Nic, Malachi, and Hugh are watching the lovely ladies while we are gone. So a big shout out and a big thank you to them! And the the two residents that are taking care of BJ....they haven't called me yet, so hopefully there have been no problems yet!

Chicks: day 2

Here is your daily dose of chicks!

This is one of the White Crested Black Polish chicks (Stella or Sophia-I can't tell them apart yet!). She is starting to realize that she will be an absolutely fabulous looking chicken and is working on some poses for her future as a super model chicken!

Picking up chicks!

Let's be honest, I have absolutely no experience trying to pick up chicks. That is why I had to bring my wing man, Hugh, along with me to bring the right ladies home! I was picturing hundreds of chicks crammed into a small space vying for attention (and warmth) and I was kind of right.

Day old chicks, ducks, and turkeys were available today at Grain Growers in Enterprise. I went with a couple of breads in mind as well as roughly how many I was planning to take home-and of course I got a couple more than planned! They had heated tubs filled with 6-7 different breeds of chicks, one breed of turkeys and one breed of ducks. I had heard that Bovan chickens are really great producers of brown eggs and a very hardy bread of chicken-so the practical side of me won and I picked up 8 of them. Thinking about it now I probably should have only gotten 6, but I think it will be fine! The Bovan chicks were already sexed, this means that the chicks I bought should only be females. The man who worked there said there is about a 95% chance that all the chicks are females, but to be on the safe side I got a couple extra.

The other two breeds I got were not sexed, so that means there's a chance we have a rooster in our bunch. I don't really want a rooster for a couple reasons, one is that we don't want the eggs fertilized-we just want eggs to eat and the other is (in my experience) roosters are mean!! I got two Black Australorps, who are also supposed to be great brown egg layers and a hardy, good looking chicken. But of course, I had to find the funniest looking, not very good egg producing chicks and just have to take them home! White crested Black Polish chickens lay white eggs, but not very often. They are described more as a show chicken or a yard chicken-it's just cute to look at. Or as Keith just said-They freaking look ridiculous! And I got two them (I think Hugh thought I was going to get even more!)

As chicks, the Bovans are a light fluffy yellow, the Australorps are black and white (a little penguin-esque!) and the Polish ones are black and yellow with funny little 'top hats'!

I had already prepared our chicks temporary home in the megabox that I put together in the living room (I really wish we had a garage!). It's has a pretty big feeder and water dish and has a heat lamp to keep these little ladies all nice and cosy!

And now they're chirping away inside!

The chicks are super cute (as if that even needs to be said!) and so far are very loudly chirping and being crazy active, running around in the box or are passed out, sleeping quietly. 

They should be getting feathers in the next couple days, although it looks to me like some of them already have a couple. They said, since this is my first time, I'll be surprised at how big they'll be tomorrow-my little babies are going to grow up so fast!

I'm expecting a few friends over this evening to watch Chicks TV and I have to say it's pretty fun to watch in the couple hours I've been watching!

The coop of my dreams!

For the past few weekends Keith and our friend Hugh have been building me a chicken coop. Well, not just a chicken coop-it's the chicken coop of my dreams! The most awesome coop in the county and now it's almost finished!

I found the plans for 'A classy A-frame chicken tractor' and knew it was exactly the kind of coop we should have: mobile, safe from predators, easy to clean, and most importantly easy to get eggs out of. The coop design is an A frame: the chicks will nest and sleep in the top part of the A-Keith and Hugh designed removable platforms and installed egg doors, so we should just be able to open a door on either side and collect the eggs! There is a trap door to let the chickens out into the bottom of the A. This is where they will hang out most of the time, eating grass, bugs and delicious chicken feed.  It will have wheels on one side and a handle bar on the other, so we can move it around the yard-this may mean we never have to cut the grass again!

I emailed the plans to Keith in October (or so) and he kept saying that it was a winter plan, and that by February he would get to it. On Feb 1st I started pushing the project hard and by now,  March 7th it is almost finished.

This is perfect timing because the chicks are supposed to arrive at Grain Growers on March 16 AND because we already have a chick! The chick we already have is named Libby (we hope she's a girl) and hatched at hour friends house a couple of weeks ago. Their daughter Morgan is taking care of Libby until we get everything finished.

Yesterday we had a beautiful day to paint the inside of the coop. We got a $5 'oops' gallon of stain with a primer that goes on like paint-perfect to seal the wood on the inside. Hugh described the color as 'womb-like' and with two coats on, it's hard to disagree! Hopefully the chickens will feel safe and warm and produce tons of eggs!!

Yesterday was the first time I helped with the coop as my minions (flying monkeys, if you will ;) have been doing all the hard work. They had also been creatively figuring out ways to improve on the not very good plans I found and for this I take all the credit!

At this rate the coop will be completed by the time we get the chicks. But of course the chicks won't go straight inside the coop. They will be in our living room for a couple of weeks growing big and strong and staying as warm as possible! So, fair warning, if you come to our house between March 16 and April 10th (or so) there will be chicks in the house!