Hello BYC! My name is Beth and I'm a new chicken addict from SC. I'd been itching to add some chickens to my list of critters for a few months; the other critters include 4 horses 4 dogs, Tiki the green parrotlet, and Charles the ferret. I'm a medical assistant at a very busy OB/GYN practice by day and critter keeper by night. I struck up a conversation with one of my patients about 6 weeks ago, knowing that she had farm animals. She mentioned that one of our local tack stores had gotten EE chicks in that very morning. My heart started beating fast. I wanted EEs bad, but i didn't want that many. We worked out a deal - she'd go by there when she left the office and have them set some aside. I'd raise all of them up til they got big enough, then she'd take some and I'd keep a few. That was our first set, it was the day after St. Patty's Day. Then the next week, Mom said she had a surprise for me. She'd made a little road trip and picked up 4 straight run white silkies, another kind I'd had my heart set on. They're about the same age as the EEs. Our third set was a glorious mix of 9: 2 exchequer girls and 1 roo, 1 austrolorp girl, 1 BPR girl, 1 silver cuckoo marans girl, 1 red star girl, and 2 salmon faverolles girls. They were born 4-5-10, ordered from a popular website. Fourth (and hopefully final) set came in last Weds from another breeder in the midwest. We ordered 10 blue laced red wyandottes and 10 blue wheaton ameraucanas, got 11 of each. Our first tragedy(s) came with that last box. I declared two DOAs right off and two sick, all BWAs. Turns out it was only 1 DOA, but the mis-named one died at lunch. The two weak ones were being fed from a tuberculin syringe (I was at work for all of this). One of them had gimpy legs- his toes were swollen and he couldn't walk. He wanted to live though! The other one I think was just tired from being trampled on the ride here. Mom took over care the next day as I really had to work. "Stubby" went downhill overnight, and we considered putting him down. The most humane thing we could think of was overdosing him with Bute. (We're too tenderhearted to break his neck.) Alas, he did not wait for the bute and went by himself. Our last worrisome chick is on the upswing. We've named him/her Bebe, like "BB" for bottle baby, since we're still dropper supplementing him/her. I can't believe how fast they're all growing. "Hard Luck Hill" is what I've come up with for the name for our property. I say "our" property, it's actually my boyfriend's grandfather's property. Our last names (and my first) all start with B, so I tried to think of something with B in it. I couldn't' get the boyfriend to go for Bar B Ranch. Say it out loud and you'll figure out why. Boys. But, he's always ranting about his bad luck, and everything around here requires a lot of work to get anything done. So, Hard Luck it was. And Hill, because, well, we're on a hill. I'll try to get some pics of everybody up shortly, all the ones I've got are on my phone. I've been lurking for a few days, learning so much and oogling everybody's pretty chickens! I'm looking forward to learning a lot more!
Beth
Beth
