Meet the Flock

We recently got 6 baby chicks from My Pet Chicken, a hatchery and chicken supply retailer. Newly hatched baby chicks can be mailed across the country because the nutrients they absorbed in the egg can sustain them for up to 3 days.

Note: Some of these photos have a red glow from the heat lamp I use to keep the chicks warm.

The chicks were 2 days old when they arrived, and they were tiny little fluffballs! They had teeny little feathers at the tips of their wings.

All piled into the food dish

2 days old

At first, Chewy was innocently curious about the little cheepers. He sniffed their box and walked around watching them.

But after a few minutes of that, he realized that he could probably eat them! There are no pictures of that revelation because I was too busy making sure he didn't jump in there. So now, Chewy has to be on a leash or manually held back whenever he's near the chicks.

Baby chicks grow super fast. Perhaps much faster than puppies! Soon, they grew little tail feathers and more wing feathers:

1 week old

And they were very mischievous. They kept knocking over their food bottle, so I taped it to the box. Then, they decided to sit on that tape...

If I fits, I sits!

More of their wing feathers grew in, and they started trying to fly. It was more like flappy hopping, though.

~2 weeks old

They are now 3 weeks old, and look awkward and lanky. They got to experience the outdoors for the first time while safely corralled in Chewy's old playpen.

Foraging

Chewy still thinks they'd make a great snack. When he gets near them, he reacts the same way he would to seeing a squirrel or cat, with huffing and puffing and lunging. Also lots of licking his chops. Good thing the chicks instinctively know to run away!

Eek!

I'm hoping Chewy will stop thinking of them as food as they get bigger. Fingers crossed!

Chewy did get to supervise the building of the chicken coop while the chicks were safely inside the house. The coop has a 4'x4' footprint that is perfectly Chewy-sized, so if I ever want to make him a doghouse, I know how big to make it! The chicks will get to move to the coop in a couple more weeks.

Testing out the chicken coop

And here are the chicks as they look now, gawky and all.

This is Cadbury. She is a Red Star and will lay brown eggs. Her favorite spot is sitting on top of the water bottle.

Cadbury

This is Skittles. She is an Easter Egger and will lay green, blue or pink eggs. She loves to kick things around (e.g. food, pine chips, or dirt), like how in Skittles candy commercials they're always scattering everywhere. She also has the loudest voice of the 6 chicks.

Skittles

This is Snickers. She is also an Easter Egger, and she's kind of rude, flying at the others for no apparent reason. Her nickname is Poopiebutt because, aside from her rude behavior, she arrived with a giant poop caked onto her butt fluff that I just could not get off. It finally fell off just a few days ago.

Snickers

This is Waffles. She is a Buff-laced Polish, and will have big floofy head feathers. They are not always good (white) egg layers, but they look funky and are often kooky.

Waffles

The chick in the middle here is Tater Tot, and on the right is Hash Brown. They are Rhode Island Reds, and will lay brown eggs. Tater Tot is growing the slowest and still has teeny little tail feathers. Hash Brown is aka Potato because she is so much larger than the others. You can see the difference in size in the photo. When jumping off things, she makes the loudest "thud" because she is so much chunkier! They are both very friendly.

Waffles, Tater Tot and Hash Brown

And that's all of them! Can't wait until they start laying eggs! That won't be for a few months, though.