CHICK-A-DOODLE-DOO

Thought it was time for a chicken update! I would say chick but they definitely aren't "chicks" anymore.

All of a sudden they are enormous.  I'm glad we can actually still tell them apart, but the Americaunas were the most difficult.  It is like they changed overnight!  We had to figure out how Flora's pretty dark eyes changed to a dark head

and how Mot-Moos single black stripe on his head just disappeared to be completely blonde.

Neeya is still enormous! haha. And really pretty.

Kelvin is the most fearless now - She is the first to run up to me when I bring treats, was the first to really learn how to use the ramp up to the coop, and sort of leads the rest of the chickens around.

Butterscotch still doesn't really have a tail {don't know if she is even supposed to}.

Cathy stares me down with her creepy one-eyed chicken face {she has two eyes, just likes to look at me crookedly through one}.

Pepper and Pickle look like typical barred rocks now, with their black and white specks.  Both of their beaks have black on them but Pepper's still has a bit more so that is the only way we can tell them apart, and only after close inspection!

{Pepper}

{Pickle}

I let them out of their run for the first time Tuesday, and they were pretty unsure about it at first...

But chicken see, chicken do.  They really are dumb little creatures ... Neeya was left behind by the other chickens and kept hurling herself into the chicken wire door, instead of just walking around it. Dumb, sweet dumb chickens. They loved pecking around in the grass and dirt...they are really fast and efficient bug cathcers - even mosquitos in mid flight!

I was a little worried about getting them all back int he run by myself but really all I had to do was stand up and start walking and they all followed and ran in.  Some of y'all asked what exactly it takes to have chickens.  Honestly, not much.

We bought our chicks as babies and as babies they needed a heat lamp.  We clamped that in their coop and put pine shavings on the floor.  We closed the door to their ramp so they wouldn't venture out into the run yet.  We fed {and still feed} our chicks purina unmedicated chick food from a local feed store.
As chicks I had to refill their automatic feeder and waterer every week or so, now I have to maybe twice a week.

Cathy next to the waterer, placed on bricks so they don't scratch dirt into it

They love treats like lettuce, watermelon, grapes, strawberries, blueberries...I've even heard that some people feed them boiled eggs...not sure what I think about that!!  Chickens also need grit to help them digest but also to add much needed calcium to their diet, especially when they start laying eggs.  Grit is usually pulverized oyster shells that can also be bought at a local feed store.

When the chicks were a bit bigger we would let them about for a little bit as a time, always having to pick them up to put them back in their coop at night and when it rained.  They finally got old enough to climb up and down the ramp themselves which was a wonderful change.

They learned from each other {Butterscotch and Kelvin being the leaders, Neeya Flora and Mot-moo being the slowest} and finally were able to get themselves out of the rain, get out of the sun during the hot part of the day, and roost at night.
It's so funny to walk in the shed in the morning and have sixteen beady chicken eyes looking at you from their roost.

When we leave town for a weekend we just make sure their feeder and waterers are full.  They eat so much now though that if we were ever to leave for a week or so we would probably have someone come check on them, refill everything.

The chickens have not started laying eggs yet, but should over the next month or so {usually around 20 weeks old}.  I can't wait!!

Of course there is some occasional coop cleaning which is not fun, and the scraping of shoes after walking around in the coop, but it's really not a big deal at all and overall I give having chickens two thumbs up!  And we don't even have eggs yet.  They are fun sweet little dumb pets and they make us all happy just to have them.

And we can't forget this old man

We let him around the chicks for the first time today, supervised, since I'm scared he will mistake them for birds he is used to hunting {doves}.

Let me know if you have any other questions about keeping chickens! We love it.

Click HERE to read more about our chickens, and how they got their names ;)