I have been staying away from TSC- my chicks from MPC are not due for another few weeks and I can't have chicks yet, since I am starting a new job and need the time there before I can take a few days off to help the little ones. Buuut it's so tempting to just get them NOW!
Plus I too won't be able to 'process' mine (I'm vegetarian and there's no way my hubby would eat our pet chickens) so I can't have a zillion old chickens running around!
I find I too am an incurable addict. Your chicks are not Wyandottes but they are adorable. Wyandottes look more like chipmunks with racing stripes - I have GLW and SLW. Yours are darling though.
Caroline
Very pretty!!! I especially like the goldens. (Note to self, add Golden Campines to "the list")
I walk in TSC, hear the chirping and HAVE TO go see what they have. Good thing I don't know what breeds any of the chicks are. I'd be stocking up. Good thing too that they have the 6 chick minimum. I might could get 1 or 2, but getting 6 seems so much harder.
Ah, the joys of chicken addiction....
After I finish typing this post, I'm going to have to edit / update my signature with the new additions.
I am extremely lucky that my land-lady - on whose 1 acre property I live, in the "back house - approved my desire to keep chickens. In this community, although it's within city limits, it's pretty rural around here. Poultry is considered "livestock" in the ordinances, and "Animal Density Points" are assigned to livestock. My landlady has 3 sheep, which counts as 12 AD Points, and an acre of property is allotted 25 AD Points. Chickens count as 1 AD point apiece. "Immature offspring not yet at sexual maturity do not count" at all.
That means I can have 13 grown up chickens.
Ooops. Okay, I had 9, then added four chicks about six weeks ago. They don't count YET. I also added 2 ducklings, which don't count YET. Then I picked up two six week old bantam cochin chicks, which don't count YET.
Once they all grow up, I'll be four AD points over the limit. Lessee, the ducklings are Cayugas, and are all black, so they're sort of Ninja-stealth ducks. Nobody will notice them, right? And the cochins, well, one is charcoal black, and one is "blue" or light grey. They're little. Nobody will see THEM, either.
I'm okay. Yup. Okay. Just keep me away from the feed store!! (Like that is possible, with 15 beaks and 2 bills to feed!)
I am completely addicted to chickens, and I live in a house with a bunch of enablers. I try to be the voice of reason, but it doesn't work, lol. I got my first chickens last year. I was toying with the idea the year before, and when my neighbor said I should get my kids into 4-H, I figured, ok, but WHAT activity to put them in? Poultry of course! I figured since the neighbor's kids are in poultry, they could guide my kids (and me too), and so I kindly declined their offer to sell my 2 and 3 year old hens, and I decided to order some chicks. I asked my neighbor how many I should get. Well, the mom said I should get more since they tend to die. So I looked into several hatcheries online and all of them had a minimum order of 25 because it was early Spring, and so I decided on Cackle Hatchery. I had asked around to find out which breed would be best for my kids, and the concensus seemed to be that Cochins would be a good choice, and Silkies too. And so, after searching through the hundreds of different birds and varieties on Cackle's website, I decided on Bantam Cochins because the idea of the Standards still frightened me at the time, and I didn't want my girls to be overwhelmed by enormous chickens. So I placed my order for 4 different colors of Bantam Cochins (however they only sent me 3 of the colors I ordered and I wasn't educated enough at the time to know the difference until the birds were several weeks old), White Silkies, and I couldn't pass up the standard sized Silver Laced Wyandottes. I was in love with the black and white contrast of their feathers and I just HAD to have some. Well, the minimum for each breed/color was 5, and so I ended up initially ordering 30 birds.
Then, the day after they arrived, I had to go to TSC to get supplies, and lo and behold, it was the first day of Chick Days! I did NOT come home empty handed. I came home with their last 3 Bantams, of which 2 were not looking so good, and 3 Amber Sexlinks so that we would have some good egg producers. The assnt manager knew the Banties didn't look so good, so she said if the did die, the store would replace them for free. Well, they died later that night. I had to wait a week before their new chicks came in and I could replace them, and I made the HUGE mistake of bringing my kids with me when I went to pick up my replacement chicks. The intention was to leave with ONLY my replacement chicks, but instead I left with the two replacements PLUS 4 new chicks and 2 ducklings.
Well, in the end 4 of those Banties survived, though a year later I only have 2 hens left from that, plus the 2 ducks are still alive and kicking (and they are cranky Mallards, lol). Then I had too many roos from that Cackle order, so I traded another BYC'er some of my Cochins for some of her birds. She didn't have any Banties, but she did have some nice Standard chicks, and so we did an even trade, 6 for 6, and I got a beautiful Black Australorp hen, a GORGEOUS Silver Cuckoo Marans roo (I love him!
), 2 Welsummer mixes that I was initially told were Araucaunas, a Turken roo, and a little Golden Laced Wyandotte that we didn't realize was as messed up as she was until we got her home. She turned out to be almost completely blind due to being pecked, had not a single feather on her back or rear end, and her growth was stunted. But my older daughter adored her, and named her Goldie, and Goldie LOVED my daughter. She would follow her by sound and wait for my daughter to sit down and then beg to be picked up and cuddled. She would sit in my daughter's lay for hours just being petted. She had not been handled before we got her. Sadly, Goldie died almost to the day she turned 6 months, and we suspect that she had some internal deformities that we were not aware of, but she was well loved the last 4 months of her life.
Well, in July of last year, as my chicks were now teenagers, I got hit with chick fever again, and decided that I wanted to try my hand at incubating and hatching out some eggs. I won my first incubator here on BYC (notice I say FIRST?), and then I bid on some eggs. I won the eggs and set them, and I diligently turned them every day, and filled the water trays, and counted my 21 days, waiting for the babies to hatch. Well, of the 9 eggs I set, 3 developed, 1 died before it hatched, and 2 hatched, but one had it's intestines fall out, so for all my efforts, I had one single little chick. I immediately tried to incubate eggs again, but nothing hatched, and so I was done for last year. But the fever hit me this before Spring was even here, lol. And so when my income tax money came in I bought a turner for the old bator and then I bought another bator and turner, and bought a digital thermostat with built in hygrometer for each bator. And then I started bidding on eggs. I bid first on E-bay, won lots of eggs, and not a single one hatched. So I began to wonder what I was doing so wrong. So I switched over to bidding on eggs here on BYC, but those wouldn't hatch either. I spent soooo much money, and I wanted chicks, but I wasn't getting them. Then I decided to stay out of the bator that had the EE eggs I got off BYC, and lo and behold, I had a good hatch! I had 15 EE eggs in there and 16 of my own Bantam eggs in there. Of the 15 EE's, 10 hatched, but we lost 2. Of the 16 Bantams, 6 hatched, and even though my birds were mixed together, I got 5 pure Cochins! Yay! I have another bator with my coveted Black Copper Marans in it, as well as Speckled Sussex, and a bunch of mix breed Bantams and some Welsummer/SS mixed eggs that I got from another BYC'er, and I have been a good girl, I've stayed out of the bator, and the eggs are developing!
They are set to hatch the 9th, and I am praying that they do! (Can you say ADDICTED?). I also have another set of eggs coming from the same BYC'er AND a dozen plus of BLRW eggs coming. Oh, and did I mention that I have geese eggs in the older bator right now? And I forgot to add that almost 4 weeks ago I was in TSC picking up supplies and it was Chick Days again! A month early! How DARE they? This time I went in alone, and I showed some restraint, though not much. If they had not been out of Bantams, I would not have been able to show any restraint, lol, but I passed up the chicks and came home with only 4 Swedish ducklings. If I had a car to get back up to TSC, I'd be really sorry! But I don't, so all I can do is dream about the chicks, lol. Like the little cuties in my bator right now aren't enough?! But I'm going to TSC probably tomorrow with a neighbor to pick up feed and more chick starter, and if they still have chicks, well, then it's my destiny to bring some home, right?
Here are some of the cuties I just hatched on the 25th/26th. I am getting some beautiful colors coming in now on the EE's, and my Bantam Cochins are adorable! I have 2 Black Mottled (at least, that's the color they appear to be, still too tiny to tell), 2 Blue Splash, and a beautiful one that I believe is from my White Cochin roo over one of my Blue Splash pullets. The chick is feathering in white, but with lovely blue Splash markings. He/she is a keeper! Oh, and I won't be done this year either. So long as my birds lay, there will be eggs to hatch and cute fluffy chicks to keep/sell. I have plans for new coops, runs, nest boxes, etc. Yeah, no addiction here whatsoever...
Here are some of the babies that I hatched out the 25th/26th. Look at those faces, you KNOW I have to have more of this!!!
The 2 Splash are on the left, and the beautiful little mystery Cochin is the one on the right:
Silkie/Cochin mix. Silkie mom, Black Mottled Cochin mama:
The EE's:
The two suspected Black Mottled Cochins:
The kids altogether in the bator, and yes, we DID put marbles in the water. My daughter was washing them as I took this photo:
Soooo cute!:
I will deny an addiction. I swear I will. You can't prove it!!!
Quote:
Oh My Gosh!! They are sooo cute! You are not an addict...You are my idol!
I need an incubator. I want to hatch some eggs...I do not have a chicken old enough to lay eggs...I will have to buy them too. Hmm, I think I will just keep buying chicks until chick days are over. (cheaper)Then once they grow, get a bator.
Your silkie /cochin mix is adorable. I would love to see what it looks like all grown up. Sometimes the mixes are just so beautiful.
HUMMM....funny how chicken_china_mom story and mine begin the same....Got the chickens for the kids...and we became the addicts!! My daughters into horses and I wanted her younger brother into it too but he was not too interested... yet. But he wanted chickens...19 chickies later... and somehow I'm out here scraping poo off the roosts and he's down the street with his 8yr old friends? They are soooo fun though!!
Op - OMG! those ducks are so cute! I can barely stand it!!
I agree, this is an addiction! I got 4, then a mere few weeks later I was getting 4 more. I would get more tomorrow too, if I could. My dh is building a movable coop, and the coop/run needs work before anyone can go out there for more than a few hours. My dd asked me if I had a baby chick in my shirt, I told her no, I'm going to have to get new babies so I can do that again. Last time we were at the feed store they had these teeny tiny little silvery grey chickens. I wanted some *so* bad, but I really can't get any more..... really.... no, seriously.....
