Some more cute pictures of my babies!

[iopele]

Tomorrow my little rascals will be two weeks old, so I gave them an early present and made them a bigger brooder out of my German Shepherd's crate. They're loving it so far! They also love their "field trips" out onto the grass. And since they're so dang cute, I thought I'd share some new pictures with everyone!

Our blue baby, I think it's a cockeral, and I can't think of a good name for him yet...

My 8 year old figured out that rubbing the chicks' legs hypnotizes them!

Mobbing my 10 year old's hand because he's giving them crumbled egg yolk:

Scratching and cleaning up every last scrap of yolk!

The new, improved, and MUCH bigger brooder (it's lined with pages of The Poultry Press newspaper, lol):

Simi says, "What are these noisy things doing in my old bedroom?!?"

(edited because I messed up one of the pics!)

 

[barg]

Nice pics, cute chicks

The cage looks nice and roomy. I like how you modified it for the chicks

Thought it was a parrot cage at first

 

[iopele]

Thanks! It's actually my Germah Shepherd's old crate from when I was potty training her--she would sleep in it so I didn't find surprises in the morning. Now that she's fully house-trained, she doesn't use it anymore. I got some plastic tomato netting from Walmart and used zip ties to attach it to the crate, because my chicks are still small enough they could slip out between the bars really easily. Took about half an hour to do it and it was REALLY easy--far easier than using the hardware cloth I put on their first brooder! I can't believe how fast they outgrew that first one, too. Hopefully they'll be good in this one for longer than 2 weeks!

 

[iopele]

Oh, and a pic of my OTHER baby:

Wouldn't want her to feel left out, with all this attention the nuggets are getting!

 

[iopele]

Okay, wish me luck--I'm off to buy lumber to start building our coop, of my own design! Let's hope I didn't forget anything too obvious...

I'm so not a carpenter.

 

[AZmama]

I like your new brooder. I will be copying that when my chicks outgrow the plastic box. I have a dog kennel just sitting here. Thanks for the idea!

 

[Dawn419]

The babies (all of them included) are adorable!

Good luck with your shopping trip!!! Did ours on Sunday...3 stores and 1500 bucks later, I think we have everything! LOL

 

[iopele]

Yikes, Dawn! We're trying to do the "bargain" henhouse. Since I made up the design myself and have absolutely NO building experience, well, let's just say I'm sure it'll be interesting.

We spent $97 on building materials today and that should be the main expenditure on the henhouse itself, minus paint and nestboxes (because there's a passing fair chance I'll get both for free if I play my cards right...). Most of the fencing I'll need is already in place so all I should have to buy is a gate and posts--and some good German beer for my father to bribe him to put up the little bit of extra fencing I need.

Of course, it might turn into a money pit and make me curse the day I ever thought this was a good idea, but what the hey--no one's gonna make it for me, so I might as well give it a shot, right?

 

[Dawn419]

Hope I didn't scare you with that figure amount...only about half of that went to the chicken supplies for the run materials...plus we stocked up on feed. The rest went to groceries, some new tools that hubby had to replace, etc. Hubby had been out of work for 2 months so we used our credit card.

Hubby is a carpenter so I'm lucky on that note and we are over-building the run for predator proofing (blessed with coyotes, fox, too many stray dogs, raccons, opposums and hawks). Will take pix of the building proccess as the way we are making the run is hard to explain. We had to buy everything in as we had nothing here to work with. When I had a standard flock, many years ago, I was lucky enough to have an old coop already in place and I built the run myself with what was already there on the farm. It wasn't pretty but it worked! LOL

 

[iopele]

Yes, actually you terrified me, LOL! I've spent most of the afternoon hammering away and so far, so good. I've started a thread in the Coop board and will be adding pictures in just a sec, if anyone's interested!