Monday, October 16, 2006

Chicken Update

With all the excitement around here, the poor baby chickies have been neglected. Well, not neglected; they've been fed, watered, etc., just not blogged about. It's been two weeks and they are growing fast. Here's a recent picture, including all the stages of chicken development we've experienced so far:
I need some bigger boxes. These things take up a lot of space. These little ones are quite noisy, cheeping all day long in the classroom. The foster chickens are starting to cock-a-doodle out in the coop. This place is starting to sound like a chicken farm.

We're down to fifteen chicks. I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but one chick got stepped on by all its siblings and its neck got broken. They were a few days old and were all just starting hop and fly about and I hadn't given them anything to perch on yet, so they kept trying to perch on each other. They have plenty of perches now and they all seem much happier now that they can get out of each other's way. Also, I divided them into two boxes to thin the population a bit. They are growing so fast, I'm going to need bigger boxes real soon. I still have to keep them inside for four more weeks, until they get all their adult feathers. It's too cool outside this time of year to put them outside yet.

Other than that, all is normal, for a homeschooling family of nine, the youngest being six days old. I called the church today to schedule Kearsyn's baptism: November 5. Now we just need to hope that everyone's healthy that weekend. We've been fighting a stomach virus around here that is slowly making it's rounds through the household. It's gotten everyone, in varying degrees, except Alex, Connor, and me. Hopefully, it will skip us this time.

2 comments:

. said...

WOW I can't believe how much they've grown. That's a neat timeline in photos. And, um, andy, I think you ARE a chicken farm ;)

Margaret said...

Thought of you the other day, Andy, when Jason was making scrambled eggs and told me he has to toss one because it was fertilized....