Two Days of Chicks

THEY'RE HERE!!! After many weeks of anticipation we have 5 new family members. Yippie!!! Clockwise from the left we have Berenice (a buff Brahma), Annette (an Australorps), Donna (an endangered Domanique), Rhonda (a Rhode Island Red), and DeDe (a Delaware). The 5 breeds all get along great and pile up in little heaps (as they are in this picture) when they sleep. The greens are my little attempt at giving the "peepers" treats but they haven't shown much interest yet.

Personality wise, DeDe is the most mellow by far. She will make some effort to escape when I reach in to pick her up but is usually quite happy once she's in my hand. She's curious and the most likely to come to my hand to check something out. Berenice is the smallest but she's quite spunky and independent. She'll be the prettiest when she's grown with big showy feathers. Annette is the fastest of the group and will be the biggest when they're grown. She will also probably be the best layer. Donna is the most shy (notice how you can't even see her face in the picture). The poor thing likes to wiggle underneath the other birds whenever she can to nap. Rhonda is Donna's favorite butt to snuggle with but she is a bit of a bully. Rhonda is a week older than the other girls and makes the most fuss when I pick her up. She has the loudest peeper and the biggest wings to show how much she dislikes my attention. This makes me pick her up more so she can get over it. Sadly, I have a hunch SHE may be a HE . Last night she made quite a show of "yawning" and attacking her shadow in their box. Time will tell on that one. Who knew it was that hard to figure out the gender of a puff ball?

The following are my first two days of Chick Observations:

• Chicks are like babies. The eat, peep, and poop...that's pretty much it.
  
• Since they're so fond of napping, chicks will sometimes fall asleep in the middle of things. These narcoleptic puff balls sometimes fall over as they fall asleep. Thankfully, they're short and don't have far to fall. Other times, they'll settle down nicely but end up so relaxed that even their heads end up on the ground. Imagine a chicken, all stretched out with her head on the ground. It looks awkward but they don't seem to mind.
  
• Chicks are not interested in order or neatness. They will poop in their food and push wood shavings into their water all day long. They also poop on each other. Thankfully, their instinct to peck at odd things they see means they'll peck the poop off each too. Once they discover that the object of their attention is poop, they seem to leave it alone but they may go back and investigate it again later. They are not very smart critters.
  
• Even the little chicks do like to preen and they're up their with cats and yogis for flexibility.
  
• Chicks, like children, like to be higher than their peers. They currently use their feeder to "roost" on and will push each other around to get a spot on it. This puts them in good position to poop in their food and on each other.
  

So, after two days with chickens, that's the latest and greatest. I'm having a ball loving on them and can't wait for Februrary or March when they'll start popping out eggs. I've found the Internet to be a wealth of information for raising chicks and discovered an entire subculture of chicken fanatics out there. Really, I recently joined the BackYardChickens forum and you wouldn't believe the passion these people have for their peepers! MyPetChicken.com is another good site for information if you want to go into the chicken business yourself. You don't need much space and they're AWFULLY fun. Peep!