[The Shire] Our growing flock!

[CombNWattles]

The chicken math in this thread is mildly terrifying. I just keep reading, and the chickens just keep increasing in number…

 

[newchickychick]

The chicken math in this thread is mildly terrifying. I just keep reading, and the chickens just keep increasing in number…

Hahaha, it helps we are young but financially very stable financially and have 29 acres to build more on! It’s definitely ambitious for my first time owning as the primary caretaker, but my son and hubby also help out. Hubby grew up with chickens and Guineas! Though he did say: never Guineas.

 

[newchickychick]

We also have found a local food pantry that takes egg donations so we plan to be sure they always have fresh eggs! and if we sell some eggs each week, will be putting the proceeds back to chicken feed, enrichment, etc. (or more future chicken math ) And our families sure will be set for life on gifted eggs.

I told my husband “thank goodness loving chickens is my ‘bad’ financial habit and not buying clothes I’ll never wear or something actually bad.” He sure got a kick out of it!

I would LOVE one day to have Ducks too but we are soooo not prepared with having everything one needs to start, so maybe next year or the year after.

Even though the chicken math is crazy, we are prepared to have them in minimum 4 square feet coop space (I think our big coop chickens ends up more like 8 each!) and minimum 10 square feet each run, and can handle needing to quickly change plans (suddenly buying a big prefab to separate more extras than we expected, etc). But ducks or pheasant… not a thing prepared yet so we’re being patient. I lived breathed and slept chicken research for the last year before we got our firsts and we had everything ready. So gotta do the same before we branch out into new territory.

 

[newchickychick]

Tried to settle in super early to be ready for early morning chick pickup. Comfortable, in my PJs, relaxed… CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP from the garage. Throw off the blankets and make a mad dash to see what on earth happened.
Open the door - nothing but calm chirps. Confused, but go back to bed. Everything still good? Okay. Blankets back on. A few more minutes? Still good. Finally close my eyes. Within seconds, CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP.
Once more I fly to the garage to see who is crying out. Still no sign of anything out of the ordinary.
I sneak towards the door, open it, walk through, then crouch down out of sight to go BACK in the garage and close it so clearly the little chicks think I’m gone.
After a minute or so, CHEEP CHEEP.
One of our youngest, a sapphire gem (or at least we think!) has hopped onto one of our Turkens. Now these poor Turkens are 3 weeks old and nearing the size of our 8ish week olds when they were 6 weeks, maybe bigger (Cornish crosses we unfortunately discovered). But they are the SWEETEST things.
I was worried the cheeping was the Turken being in pain from little chick feet on its back.
No, the sapphire gem kept panic cheeping as it was losing its balance. Because it elected to jump on top of the Turken to try to get comfy up there and SLEEP.

Finally it managed to find a good position on its new bed and the Turken angel was making very soft, content chick noises and settled down to sleep too.

Worth the scare? I’ll probably say yes after I finally get some sleep. In the sapphire’s defense, it IS a bit of a diva. Can’t find one of its best friends? Cheeping like it’s being viciously attacked. Offended that someone took one of its favorite nap spots? Loud cheeps! Giant sky hand invading to take the waterer to clean it out? Sound the alarms! Guess every flock needs a drama queen.

 

[newchickychick]

Had a dream that I woke up and checked tracking - and it said my package was delivered to a nonexistent feed store. Called the store, they said essentially “finders keepers.” Woke up so stressed and confused, but very happy to realize it was just a weird dream.

Chickies are at the local post office now! Cackle’s hasn’t moved from pre-shipping label but I’m learning to just put in the tracking info to text with updates and (try to) be patient.

Waiting on the post office call so I can wake my son up so we can go pick them up together. It’s his last (half-day) of school so I know he’s looking forward to starting his day off with new chicks. So, so excited for the silkies. The more I learn about them and more videos I watch, the more enamored I am.

This year is our “see what we like best” year which is why we’ve primarily gotten surprises. That way once these babies have lived out long happy lives, or if we coop upgrade for more chicken math , we might be more selective on what we want to keep. Though knowing me, I just like chickens in general and will always want luck of the draw and to go for surprises.

 

[newchickychick]

Babies got here. They were ALL wobbly and one seemed to be in danger zone (seemed like it was spitting up in its mouth?). Did a gentle crop massage and made sure to get water in it as well as giving everyone a drop of nutridrench and putting some in the water. Scary scary morning! We may have a lot of chicks but they're all our babies so it was stressful. There's two, maybe three I'm still nervous about, but I'm going to be doing 15 minute checks on everyone for the next few hours to be sure there's nothing else that needs intervention.

For now, the two I was terrified about seem to be doing so much better. Still not 100% optimistic, but going to do absolutely everything I can to help them. I'll take pics tomorrow or day after so everyone can settle in properly and we can be sure everyone's okay. <3

 

[newchickychick]

So far, still so good. Fingers crossed! Still doing checks every 15 minutes. Still so shaken up from how off everyone seemed when arriving. Ugh. My heart! Good news is, I'm stocked up on plenty of vitamins to be sure they've got enough for a loooong time. I know Silkies especially can be prone to deficiencies.

Looks like one of them might be a White Sultan Bantam! 5 toes, but really white/pink skin. So interesting!

Can't wait to see if any of the frizzle bantam cochins I ordered actually are frizzle. Kiddo loves them! He has been very helpful throughout this. I'm grateful he's big on team 'chicken care' despite being a teen. Will be even better now that he's out of school for the year.

I'll take a sleepless week just to be sure everyone is happy and healthy any day.

 

[thistlewick]

Gosh this thread is charming as heck, glad to be a 'watcher' now - hope you didn't mind all the notifications of likes and hearts haha

Your stream of consciousness writing is *exactly* like my inside brain thoughts so I feel ya, on all of this. We got started last year and chickens are HEAVEN.

 

[newchickychick]

Gosh this thread is charming as heck, glad to be a 'watcher' now - hope you didn't mind all the notifications of likes and hearts haha

Your stream of consciousness writing is *exactly* like my inside brain thoughts so I feel ya, on all of this. We got started last year and chickens are HEAVEN.

Oh my goodness, I don’t mind at all! It makes me so happy to have others on my chicken journey.

My stream of consciousness is ADHD and a “wait did I mention this yet?” whammy double combo.

That’s so awesome! I’m adoring them so far. I was like “honey am I being too ambitious” and he was like “if anyone can deep dive into crazy chicken keeper successfully and not get overwhelmed, it’s you.”

 

[newchickychick]

Babies did NOT want to be disturbed for me to remove bedding for puppy pads and seem to be very certain on their feet now. I’m going to change it out tomorrow when we add the new babies so they’re not running screaming from the scary giant sky hand less than 24 hours after getting home. Going to put down paper towels again though but wanted to get some pics while I had them out. We also are probably going to remove the stickers just to be safe. They were there for when we had our eye-pecker issue to distract them - even though it distracted all the other chicks and not it very well.

No clue what this baby could be. They’re all from Ideal! It’s SO white. Very pretty!

Some pretty wild face markings on this feather legged beauty.

Featuring one of our silkies. I think patridge? In good light it looks very silvery though, so maybe not. I’m no expert!

Everyone is, to my GREAT relief, eating and drinking and playing. This morning was so very scary, but at least they’ve made it 12 hours now. Will keep working hard to take good care of them.

And one of the silkies is definitely more soft brown/tan with a single black spot on its head. Cutie! Also featuring our little yellow bantam with black spots that was in a TSC bin. Mysteries ahoy!