i am soooooo sad.. help me

[wildorchid053]

ok i started hating chickens.. nasty smelly.. of course i haven't ever been close to one. then one day grandaughter age 7 brought us 8 chicks in retaliation for giving her a bunny. seems they thought we "deserved" it since the bunny chewed a hole in their new couch. i have to admit they were adorable..so they slept in my bathtub while we built a coop and run..now they are outside and sometime during all this i have fallen in love..then i found your site...and now i am ... well... i need to go to chicks annonamous sp* i am in here everyday.. reading and reading and replying.. and i love my roos and hens.. i get excited reading about your hatches and incubators and can hardly wait till mine get old enough to lay. 13 weeks. are you all the same way too? i think i might even have a chickenfever disease lol... anyway i want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all the great ideas and posts you have.. and the pictures...this is a wonderful site

 

[thespinningcottage]

Hi! I'm new here too. I know what you mean about addicting. We visited a farm this past February with a lovely winery, u-pick fields of strawberries and blueberries, and country store. They had chickens roaming free that would eat Cheer-i-os out of your hand and we fell in love. So what do you do next? You order a bunch of chicks! Our 8 arrived early March and we knew nothing about them other than the very very basics of setting up a brooder. We made sure the temp was correct and the feed was correct and they wouldn't drown etc. etc. etc. yet we ended up losing 7 of the 8. It was heartbreaking but we persevered. We found a local feed store that was selling chicks and bought some to replace the ones that died. They thrived yet raccoons got 3 of them eventually, so we got some more and took better precautions against predators. We've learned so much and through it all BYC was there! We don't have eggs yet but all the signs are beginning to appear so we're hopeful. I hope I can be forgiven for my past mistakes which cost some beautiful chicks their lives, and atone every day by pouring affection (and Cheer-i-os) on our little flock of 9! Good luck to you.

 

[SallyF]

Unfortunately bad things happen in the world of nature. We just pick up and go on, taking comfort that we do the best we know how to do at the time! Yes, BYC is addicting. I read posts every morning with my first cups of coffee.