Yesterday was a particularly nice day outside, peaked at 70F in my town so I decided to take the 3-5week old larger chicks outside for a few hours. At first we just had the two largest Ameraucanas outside, but the one got spooked and refused to be caught leading my son chasing her around the yard until it hid on the other side of a large tree making my son run around it...!
But when we brought outside our old toddler enclosure (same thing as those puppy enclosures essentially, about 2ft high) we brought out 6 more of the largest chicks....5 Ameraucana, 1 mystery, and 2 RIRs.
Well they immediately began looking for edibles on the new turf--grass--picking at dead leaves and carrying them around like treasure. But what REALLY caught my eye was they found two worms...already! The first earthworm was only 3" long and it took them a while to figure out how to eat it, but later my son noticed a 7" earthworm escaping from the enclosure where all the chicks where and he threw it back in and they went nuts over it running around and tripping over the worm fighting over it!!! Eventually one of them got it half way done their throat but kept regurgitating it so my son took the worm and cut it into smaller 1" pieces with a disposable knife and paper plate. VERY quickly they associated the white plastic knife with the worms and anxiously looked at it every time I put it in their eyesight...
It's just so exciting that they are growing up so fast and already got their first worms that quick... I'm proud of them haha!
-Anna
But when we brought outside our old toddler enclosure (same thing as those puppy enclosures essentially, about 2ft high) we brought out 6 more of the largest chicks....5 Ameraucana, 1 mystery, and 2 RIRs.
Well they immediately began looking for edibles on the new turf--grass--picking at dead leaves and carrying them around like treasure. But what REALLY caught my eye was they found two worms...already! The first earthworm was only 3" long and it took them a while to figure out how to eat it, but later my son noticed a 7" earthworm escaping from the enclosure where all the chicks where and he threw it back in and they went nuts over it running around and tripping over the worm fighting over it!!! Eventually one of them got it half way done their throat but kept regurgitating it so my son took the worm and cut it into smaller 1" pieces with a disposable knife and paper plate. VERY quickly they associated the white plastic knife with the worms and anxiously looked at it every time I put it in their eyesight...
It's just so exciting that they are growing up so fast and already got their first worms that quick... I'm proud of them haha!
-Anna
