New Chicks in the Flock (pic heavy!)

[Fluffballs]

Yay! Glad Iddy Biddy's OK! Hehe, poor Little Miss Lungs, the public's image of her stylishness might be destroyed!

 

[Chicken Frenzie]

Soooo cute!!!!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The chicks' favorite toy appeared in the brooder again--the hand!

SWSSU is trying to figure out how she's going to climb up my arm.

Pip thinks this 'arm' thing needs investigating.

Iddy Biddy spent a long time pecking at the hand.

Little Miss Lungs thinks a photo op with the hand will repair her reputation after that last picture of her.

Iddy Biddy watches as SWSSU demonstrates how to properly scratch in a hand.

In the mean time, Sassy Marans would rather show off the little wing feathers she's growing in.

Sassy Marans was feeling cute.

Sassy Marans even waited for the other chicks to go to sleep for a private picture session. Looking divine by the waterer:

 

[Fluffballs]

Very cute again! Yes, Miss Lungs, your reputation has been restored. Oh, and way to go Sassy in your wing feathers!!!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

My camera died.

(...Also, don't mind the title change. I was kind of disliking the original one.)

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The camera lives again!! You know what that means..!



We have discovered our legs and all the nifty things they can do to the bedding in the brooder. In spite of my efforts to thwart them, the chicks have managed to keep a patch of the brooder scratched down to the floor, right under the heat lamp.

Here's SWSSU and Iddy Biddy sleeping on the bare patch:

With scratching comes two other things. Those are...

...Messy waterers:

...And shavings-filled feeders:

(Little Miss Lungs kindly modeled beside both the feeder and the waterer for those pics.)


But who could stay mad at a face like this? (Pip says, "Who, me?" )

We are all showing signs of getting feathers in now, some more so than others.

Sassy Marans already had wing feathers in. She is now getting tail pins...

...And, of all things, leg pins!

I've never raised a bird with feathered legs, so this came as a surprise to me!


Meanwhile, Pip is showing some very pretty wing feathers.

Iddy Biddy is just getting her first few wing feathers and, unlike Pip's, they're coming in white!

Is that normal for speckled Sussex?


And, of course, Little Miss Lungs couldn't show off her wing feathers in the same way that everyone else did.

As I finish this post, the chicks are beside me in their brooder, covering that bare patch of floor again by scratching up a new patch. The little stinkers!

 

[theoldchick]

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The hand is not such a beloved toy when it reaches in and picks the chicks up. As a matter of fact, the hand is quite cruel, removing chicks from their warm, safe brooder and placing them on a big, scary lap.

The idea was met with resistance at first. Pip tried to wriggle her way loose:

SWSSU attempted the same, but with little more success:

Little Miss Lungs was pretty calm after some initial struggling:

Sassy Marans took it the best out of the lot:

(Of course, shortly afterward, she scrambled her way out of my hands and I ended up putting her back into the brooder before she took a tour of the room.)

I've never done that before and don't think I will again. I prefer to let the babies come to me when they want to.


We are wandering further and further from the heat lamp, so I decided to move the waterer back a bit. It seemed like the perfect place to scratch for the chicks!

Where the waterer used to be (notice the shavings that Pip is tossing around) :

Where it is now:

Because we couldn't aim away from the waterer! If we did, drinking just wouldn't be enough of a challenge!

So I tried to distract them from their destructive ways with a DE dust bath. Iddy Biddy thought this was scary:

Then she realized it could be eaten:

...And now dust baths are our favorite snack:

Where's a facepalm smiley when you need it?

 

[Fluffballs]

Hahaha! A dust bath is a snack!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

When you have so many new feathers coming in, you've gotta keep yourself good and preened.

Even if there don't happen to be new feathers where you're preening.

(I've been outside painting all day, so this is all I have until I get back from tucking the big girls into bed for the night. )


EDIT: Little Miss Lungs says "What about MY picture?!"