Silkie Moving Day!

The silkies moved out today into the ChickNBarn and attached run. They are SOOOO happy to have room to stretch and run and scratch. I think they will be fine with the temps. They definately are not having any problems with the 52 degrees we have right now! I've put a heat lamp into the barn where they will go at night to give them a little extra warmth while they adjust to the outdoors.

My only concern at this point is little Hoppy. I'll have to watch her closely over the next few days to make sure she is eating and drinking and is able to maneuver around the coop. Cross your fingers for her! One thing is already sure - she is able to get around a LOT easier on the ground than in the shavings of the brooder, so that is a good sign! In my last post, I mistakenly said they were seven weeks old. Actually, they have just passed the six week mark. It just FELT like an eternity that they were in the brooder here in my office!

All I wanted for Christmas WAS....

My girls have let me down....no eggs for Christmas. Sigh. Well, there's always next week, I suppose! Either that, or it's dumplings for New Years! I'm just kidding of course...

In other news Santa brought me my outdoor webcam for Christmas, so now I can broadcast either live video of the outdoor pen OR the indoor brooders!

The Silkies are 7 weeks old now, and need to go outside SOON! Since the weather man is calling for well above freezing temps over the next week, tomorrow may be moving day for them. I know they will be very happy to get out of their cramped brooder! My only worry is Little Hoppy. She is still only about half the size of the others, but is growing stronger and much better at getting around now. I suppose I can always try moving them out and if it doesn't work out, they can come back in.

The new babies turned one week old today! They are already getting their wing feathers coming in and it won't be long before I have to put the lid over the brooder to keep them from flying all over the house. They are so cute!

The New Batch of Chicks has Hatched!

The school hatching project wrapped up this week. I've had such a blast with this whole project from start to finish - from the beginning working with the kids each week, to the final hatch that I was able to share with everyone through the wonders of the internet! My friends at BYC ooh'd and ah'd through the hatching process as it was captured on my webcam. I've moved the cam to the brooder now - you can watch the little guys running around being cute!

Final tally...15 Barred Rocks went in the bator - 13 made it through to day 18 and all 13 hatched. They were lively and strong from the minute I could candle them - not to mention they were packed expertly! Thank you thank you Lisa for sending such wonderful eggs!!
Final hatch % on those - 87%

14 Buff Orpington eggs started - Those eggs were well packed and arrived safely, but were an interesting mix of sizes and colors and porosity. From the start, they did not look as lively as the BRs when candled, and always seemed to be a day behind in development. 12 made it through to day 19 - but 2 of those were iffy - showed development, but no movement, but figured I'd leave them just in case. Of those 12, 7 hatched on their own, and #8 hatched with a lot of help. So, 8 of 12 there - 75%. I feel sure 3 of the bunch would not have been able to completely hatch with out help, but of the 3, 2 of them looked good. Unfortunately the last BO that needed the most help was just too weak and passed away later that same day.

I really can't remember anything in a long time that I got this excited about. Best of all, I got to share the action with the kids in Andrew's class AND the gang at BYC. I took two of the eggs that were close to hatching to the school on Wednesday, and the kids got to see one emerging from the shell - a moment I'm sure many of them will not forget! I really needed something like this to end a rather difficult year on a positive note!

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!!

PS...In case you missed the hatch....here's a video of one of them hatching out - watching them come of the eggs never gets old - what a miracle and symbol of God's grand design and renewal of life.

Here's what's happening lately....

The silkies will be FOUR weeks old tomorrow...and they had their first outing into the big outdoors last Saturday. There are not many days in December that hit over 70 degrees, and so the nice afternoons are not to be wasted when there are baby chicks ready to explore the big world. Even Hoppy got into the fun, pecking at the fresh grass that has regrown since the big girls graduated out of the ChickNBarn/Run. Since it was another nice afternoon today, they got another couple of hours out in the warm sun. I think it made them grow even faster!


I'm watching the big girls intently now for signs they are getting ready to start giving us some eggs. Their combs and wattles are getting much redder now, and we're waiting every day for the 'egg squat' that indicates they are getting close. Since they will be 20 weeks old on Christmas, my new favorite Christmas song is 'All I want for Christmas is a fresh laid egg....'.

Finally, I just wanted to leave you with a picture of one of the babies. He is very interested in this computer thing, and wants to know why HIS picture is not at the top of the blog page...

Project "School Incubation"...day 2 and counting...

Incubation fever strikes again! Andrew asked if we could do an incubator project with his 2nd grade class, and of course I said 'yes!'. Those of you who suffer from the chicken affliction will know that you can never say 'no' to hatching more eggs! We picked this week to set the eggs, as we have exactly four weeks of uninterrupted school between the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks.

I dropped the incubator by the school on Monday to give it time to adjust to the classroom temperatures and make sure it was steady before setting the eggs on Wednesday. The kids were very curious and asked lots of great questions about the incubator, chickens and hatching eggs! The eggs were delivered on Wednesday morning to the school. I have set a few of them there and the rest here at home just in case one incubator does not perform. I'd hate to have the kids disappointed if we don't get ANY eggs to hatch! Of course, the other issue may be if we get TOO many eggs to hatch....

I'll be going back to the school every few days to check on the eggs and to talk to the kids about chickens, the parts of an egg and embryo development. It's really fun to get back in the classroom again, if only just for a few minutes! Hopefully the kids will take away some knowledge of chickens, eggs and the life cycle from all this - I'm sure they won't soon forget those fuzzy little chicks if all goes well.

In other news...The silkie babies continue to grow like little weeds. These little guys can EAT! They are getting their feathers in now, and starting to act like little adults - working out the 'pecking' order. So far I have strong suspicions that we have at least 3 roosters, but silkies can be notoriously sneaky about hiding gender, so we'll just have to see...

Hoppy, the one legged chicken is still getting along. I would like to see her growing more as she is still significantly smaller than the other chicks, but she seems perky and healthy otherwise. Thankfully the other chicks don't seem to single Hoppy out for 'unwanted' attention, so as long as she is doing OK and not getting picked on, I'm happy to leave her in the brooder with the other chicks.

There is one other chick that has developed some issues. Rascal is one of the partridge babies. I believe she has suffered a head injury, which has caused crookneck. It was much worse on Wednesday but seems to be getting slowly better. She is eating and drinking well, so it's more a wait and see game than anything else at this point. On Wednesday morning she could not hardly hold up her head and it was twisted all the way around. By this morning she can lift her head just fine, and the twist is only slight. She still has seizures or 'fits' once in a while - most often when startled - where she shakes her head and walks around backwards for a few seconds, but much less than on Wednesday. I'm optimistic she will make a good recovery!

Finally the big girls are getting closer and closer to giving us some eggs! They will be 20 weeks old on Christmas, but many times the lack of daylight will delay those first eggs coming, so I will have to be patient! Still, I've uncovered the nest boxes for them and now it's just a waiting game. Again and again I am glad I took the time and effort to cover their run. They often fly up into the netting, but can't get over the fence, thankfully! I have no doubt they'd be wanding all over the woods, and worse yet in the neighbors' yards. Since I want to be able to keep my chickens, it's important that they are good neighborly chickens (in other words, stay at HOME and stay quiet!)

They are doing really well with the cold weather - even though it's not been bitterly cold here, we have had some hard freeze mornings but they are cosy in the coop and seem to not notice the cold at all. They do enjoy their treats of sunflower seeds and scratch feed and have figured out that I'm the 'food lady'. I wish everyone was so glad to see me as they are!

We're ready for our close ups....

Just a quick post this evening to announce CHICK-CAM! I've added a streaming web cam of the brooder so you can check back and see what our chicks are doing.

They have grown a LOT this week - already getting their silkie feathers coming in on their wings. Since nobody told them that Silkies can't fly, they are going to have to learn the hard way and they are already trying out their new wings!

Hoppy is still hopping along on one leg - I do not think that his bum leg will ever straighten out, but since he seems to be getting along pretty well with just one good leg, I will continue to give him the chance to grow and see how he does.

Enjoy the chicken cam! Eventually I plan on getting a webcam out in the big girl's run too...

The Chicks have Hatched!

It's been a busy couple of days in the backyard chicken farm! Our babies have arrived!! They needed a bit of help to get hatched - I think the humidity was a bit low or unsteady so their membranes were too dry. I carefully helped them pip their shells, and it wasn't long before we had all 10 babies drying in the incubator.

They are all eating and drinking well and are just the cutest little fluffballs ever. There is one little guy with a gimpy leg. After researching the common issues with leg problems in chicks, I have ruled out slipped tendon and splayed leg. He just can't put one leg down at all. I think we will try a brace for him and see if it helps at all. His new name: Hoppy...of course! It will be really fun to watch these guys grow up into big little chickens.

It's day 21.... and we have a PIP!

Well, it's day 21.... the silky eggs have been VERY quiet the last couple days. TOO quiet for us waiting and watching and trying not to obsess too much on when those babies will come out...IF they will come out.... will they EVER come out??

Finally - got home from lunch out today and we have a PIP on the side of one of the eggs!! Come on baby chickie, you can do it!! Stay tuned.....

Hatching Eggs & Other Fun

All is calm out in the chicken yard tonight...the girls have settled in nicely to their larger coop and life is slowly returning to normal since our vacation.

In the spirit of 'don't count your chickens before they hatch', I'm a bit reluctant to say much of anything about my expectations for the hatching eggs in the incubator currently. We got 14 silky eggs total in the mail. They are a mix of buffs, whites, partridges and blue/black/splash. Two of them failed to start developing and were removed on day 7. I candled again on day 10 and on 14 and removed one more 'quitter'. That leaves us 11 eggs with dancing chicks inside! It is really neat to candle the eggs and see the baby chicks moving around. You can even see their tiny little feet shining through the eggshell! They are due to hatch on Monday the 15th - how nice that the kids will be out of school. I'm hopeful we'll get at least a few of them to make it all the way out. Stay tuned for the hatching report sometime next week...

The incubator project has been so much fun we are planning another batch to do a project with Andrew's 2nd grade class. I've built a second incubator from another cooler and have spent this week anxiously adjusting it to get it ready. I've included an automatic egg-turner since there will not be anyone there to do the turning duties. The picture is of the new classroom incubator in the testing phase.

Lots of changes to report in our backyard flock!

Well, it's been too long since my last update post! For two of the last four weeks our family was on vacation in Europe, so it was amazing to see the girls when we came back. It seemed they had doubled their size in the two weeks we were gone!

I have finally finished the chicken yard and larger coop for the girls, and just in time! They were rapidly outgrowing the ChickNBarn. I have put up a stretch of chainlink fence to section off part of the yard for the chickens. Their area is approximately 80' x 20'. I used PVC pipe to make arcs to fit over the chicken yard and covered them with deer netting to keep the chickens in and keep them from flying over where the dogs are, or back into the woods. I'm rather pleased with the results, and the chickens are thrilled to have more room to graze in safety!

In other chicken-related news, I have built my own home made incubator and am anxiously awaiting the arrival of silky eggs from Jen, who I met on the Backyard Chickens Forum. Aren't these just the cutest chickens?!?!? After several days of tinkering, I finally have my incubator ready for those eggs. I'm hoping to have them tomorrow or Wednesday. Then it's 3 weeks of anxiety and anticipation - what fun!

Six Weeks....

The chickens have been growing and growing and growing and growing! They look like such nice ladies now.

We've been busy building (yes, another...) larger coop for them. I've come to the realization the ChickNBarn will not work for them when they get full size. The new coop is about 7' x 4' and has 12 nesting boxes. It is painted and shingled and ready for move in day, but I'll not move them over until they get a bit bigger.

The county fair was in town this past week and a friend and I took the kids last Saturday. Of course, I thought the biggest treat was seeing the chickens! There were some silver Wyandottes there, including a beautiful rooster. While we can't get over how big our girls are getting, I was still a bit shocked by how LARGE those grown up girls were! Our ladies have a lot of growing left to do if they are going to be giving us yummy eggs in just three months or so.

The kids had a blast - even though we didn't take them on any rides - but I did pay $2 per child to give them the chance to milk a REAL cow. Jacob and Hayden did great, but Katie and Andrew were a bit less impressed, I think! I'll post pictures as soon as I can find where Jacob left my camera after 'borrowing' it to take his famous chicken videos...

This week's project will be to partition off part of the backyard with chain link fencing so the chickens will have more room to graze unmolested by the dogs. Daisy is determined to have chicken doggy treats, so my hopes of having them co-habitating in the same fenced area is going down the drain. When done, they will have the new coop in an area about 80' by 20'. That will free up the current ChickNBarn/Run for future chicken expansion. Those bantys were SOOOO cute at the fair and hatching eggs may be our spring time project. What fun will that be??!!??

Four Weeks Already??? And New Digs!

I can't believe it's been over four weeks now that we've had our chicken babies. They are growing so nicely and are getting their big girl legs. They have adjusted quite well to life in their ChickNBarn/Run home.


They now have an expanded pen for the daytime. I finished the last of the panels and door on Tuesday and the chicks are very happy to have more room to run and play and graze. Wonder how long the grass in the new area will last??


I remember as a teenager having a dove cote that I could walk into and spend time with the birds. It was one of my favorite things to do - just to sit and watch them. I've rediscovered that joy with my chickens now that I have a pen large enough to stand in easily. These chickens are good therapy given the difficulties we've had lately with our oldest son's hospitalization. It doesn't do well for me to have too much idle time to think these days, so staying busy with working on the chicken pen has been a very good thing for me!

Free Range!

We let the chicks out today for the first time to free range for a bit in the backyard. I think they are large enough now so they can't fit easily through the chain link fence - although if really frightened they might still make an attempt.

They got to spend about 20 minutes out and about before the rain shooed us all back into our respective houses. The girls know exactly where their coop is. When they would get startled, they'd all make a bee-line right back into the open run door and just about as quickly turn right back around to graze on the grass some more.

Katie and Andrew had fun playing 'stalk the chicken'. The chickens act like they don't see you creeping after them, but always manage to stay just out of reach. They also enjoyed their fresh tomato treat from the self-proclaimed 'tomato master', Katie.

They will be getting lots more 'out' time as they get bigger and bigger!

3 Weeks and a New Run Project

The chicks are doing great outside and still growing amazingly fast. They are starting to completely feather out now, and have tiny combs starting to grow on their heads. I've missed having them in the building though, as I can't really get to them in their ChickNBarn and run. The run is too low, and I'm not comfortable letting them out in the yard yet as they can still fit through the chain link fence. Also, Daisy Dog is not happy about the chickens - I think she wants to see how they taste!

So, I'm now in the process of building a 6' high run for them so the chicks can have more space to roam in safety. I'm making it from panels, so I can move and reconfigure as needed. I have one panel done.... now if I can just get the rest made inbetween work, homework, phone calls and kids...

Our First Night Out

Well, it has been a busy day for the chicks. They love being outside in their pen so much better than the brooder that I decided today that I'd try putting them out for the night. It is warm enough out there during the day for them, but as they still may need some extra heat at night, the first step was to put an outlet where I could plug in the brooder lamp at night.

So... off to Lowe's for conduit, outlets and some Romex for a new weather-proof outlet. I had planned to run a whole new circuit just for the outside lights, but I ran out of energy and time and stamina so ended up just piggy-backing off one of the inside outlets for the circuit. I ran the romex out and down through the conduit, then into the new outlet box on the post. Just the perfect place for running a drop cord to the coop!

I did finish the predator-proofing also today so I feel pretty confident that the chicks will be safe tonight from any roaming 'coons or 'possums. I also moved their brooder pen pan into the coop for now, and added pine shavings so they would feel more at home.

We left for a late dinner and back-to-school-supply shopping and did not get home until after 11pm. I checked on them, and half of them figured out that the coop is the place to spend the night. The other four needed a bit of help to join their coop-mates in the chick-n-barn, but as of this writing, they are all settled in for the night. It's so cute that some of them have already figured out how to use the roosts - they are growing up SO fast and are starting to think they are big girls already.

From the road it looks like we have some weird Halloween house in the back yard with the red glow of the brooder lamp. The pics are a bit hazy because of the long shutter time, but I wanted to have the flash off to show how the coop really looks in the dark. You can see the chicks here inside the coop - two of them are on the roost, and the rest are hanging out together for the night.

It's RAINING in Concord!

I can't believe my eyes.. it's raining! Prayers do get answered... I was out with the kids about 4pm this afternoon and it was 102 degrees out there. I said a little prayer for SOMETHING to change about the weather - it's been over 90 deg each day for almost a month now and no rain for longer than that.

We got home and I finished up some stuff for work (I telecommute for a 'major financial institution'). I wanted to go out to work a bit more on the coop. I'm going to bury wire around the perimeter to keep anything from digging under to get to the chickens. At any rate, I went out to measure to cut the wire and there was a big dark cloud blowing in from the southwest. By the time I went back in the outbuilding to cut the wire to size, it actually started RAINING!! It's been raining now for about an hour. Although I'm not getting my coop finished, I sure am glad to get a break in this heat and drought! You can tell how dark it got from these pics and also where I've been digging to start the project of critter proofing the coop.

Another good thing about the rain is that it gave a good test of my new weather-resistant feeder I found. I was looking for a feeder that would resist the rain, and finally found something reasonable at Walmart. It's a 'squirrel-proof' feeder that is made of painted metal and has a nice roof and sides. I took off the squirrel perch that closed off the food if something heavy landed on the feeder, and rigged it with a chain so I can raise it as the chicks grow. After the heavy rain and wind, the area where the feed would be is dry as can be!

We're TWO Weeks Old Today!

The peep gang turned two weeks old today and BOY have they grown already! Some of them are already starting to get the bare spot on the top of their heads that will be their big-girl combs, and most all now have tail feathers coming in. It's interesting to see the size differences between the different varieties and also between two chicks of the same variety.

The smallest variety is definately the Golden Campines - they are quite noticably smaller than the others. You can recognize them from their brownish color. They are getting the prettiest feathers in their wings. The largest variety is the Dominiques and the Wyandottes fall somewhere in the middle.

There are a couple of the chicks that are showing their people-personalities already. "Crystal" is one of our silver Wyandottes and she is always happy to hop up in my hand for some attention, while most of the others are running the other way. The picture to the right is Crystal sitting up high on her favorite perch.

The largest chick of all is one of the Dominques and she is also pretty friendly and is starting to assert her authority over the others. It will be interesting to see if the 'pecking order' they are establishing now will hold as they mature.

Taking the Babies Outside

With it being so warm here, I figured it was warm enough outside to let the chicks try out their new Chick-n-barn and run. They LOVE being outside to scratch, and peck and stretch their wings. We ordered their hutch and run from Critter-Cages.com after doing a lot of price comparison online. I had it within just a few days and set it up waiting on the chicks to get big enough to enjoy outside time.

After a few 'modifications' which included installing a wire floor in the hutch and adding some basic security to make sure the doors are 'dog proof', the chicken house is ready! Now all we need is a good name for the chicken house. Any ideas??

SO......Today's the day! They are so cute out there - like little puppies. Their agenda is basically scratch, play, eat, drink, nap, repeat... what a life!

The dogs are facinated by the babies. I think the two shelties are more interested in herding them around, but our rescue mutt, Daisy, seems to have more 'chicken-cidal' thoughts on her mind. I'm hoping the dogs and chickens will be able to share the backyard area at the same time, but I will not be comfortable letting the chickens out of their pen until they are big enough to defend themselves a bit. We'll have to see how the dog/chicken relationship develops. For now, though the chicks are having a blast doing all their chicken things out there. Finally... one good thing about 100 degree days - it's warm enough to let the chicks out!

Our Chicken Saga Begins...

I've wanted chickens ever since I was a little girl. When I was growing up, we had a rental house in another town and we would go up to the rental house several times a year to do maintenance, etc. The name of the house was 'Greene Acres" because it was in a mostly rural area and the neighbors had pigs and cows and....CHICKENS! A big thrill was going up to Greene Acres and helping the neighbors collect eggs.

I had toyed with the idea of having chickens off and on as pets and for the eggs since having my own home, and finally decided to make the plunge this summer. My husband didn't seem TOO upset by the idea, so with the help of the kids we picked out our chicks one Sunday evening. They hatched out on Monday and were shipped to us immediately via US mail.

Tuesday morning the Post office calls... we have, um, some baby chicks for you??!!??

Off we go to the post office with all four kids in tow. What fun to have the clerk bring out the box and hear the little peeps coming out! I opened the box with some trepidation, a bit worried that we may have not had 100% healthy arrival, but there they were - the 7 chicks we ordered and a 'spare' thrown in for a total of 8 healthy and active chicks.

Of course, everyone in the postoffice had to have a look ("you can get chicks through the MAIL??"), and the clerk even showed us a box full of day-old quail chicks. The quail were no bigger than a quarter - too cute!

We headed straight home and got the girls into the brooder pen I had set up on Monday. I was glad then I had stayed up late fixing up the pen, and did our chicken supply run on Monday rather than waiting until Tuesday!

So, began our Chicken saga....

Just Getting Started

So, we have chicks.... now what? What else but to share our fun of watching them grow with you all.

For starters, the "Reader's Digest" version... ordered our chicks a week ago Sunday from Meyer Hatchery. They arrived safe and sound on Tuesday the 7th - 8 little balls of fluff and beaks. They have already grown up a lot in one week! More to come in future posts, but for now, a picture of our cuties the day they arrived.