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!
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