New Baby Chicks

Confession Time: I've been holding out on you, dear blog readers.  It's been nearly 4 weeks since we had this exciting news to share, and I am just now putting it on the blog.  If you're a friend of mine on facebook, then you've already seen some of this.  And I guess that's where my guilt comes from.  I usually try to reward my blog readers who take them time to click over and visit my blog with the first information.  But in the busy-ness and excitement of the first day the ease and instant gratification of facebook triumphed.  So I apologize.  But the good news is I have some more recent photos to share.  And they'll be shared here first!

If you haven't figured it out yet, we got some new chicks to add to our backyard flock.  We were so thrilled to receive them in the mail.  The anticipation was intense the whole week right after our hatch day.  The hatchery co-op we ordered from sent us an email on the night of hatch day (a Monday for us) to let us know our chicks had hatched and had been sent out that night via the US Mail.  So then we literally waited by the phone for word from our local post office to pick them up.  They came on exactly the day we had anticipated and we rushed to the post office to pick them up.

Warning: Before you click that button to continue reading, you should know there are A LOT of photos in this post.  Prepare your self. :)  

We split our order with another chicken raising family that we are friends with here in Juneau.  And to increase the variety of our flock we ordered a few extra and planned to sell off the other chicks that we wouldn't have room for.  The same day, our friends came by to get the 6 they had ordered and within a week and a half, we had sold off 5 more leaving us with our final group of 8.  2 barred rocks, 2 ameraucanas, 2 welsummers, 1 Rhode Island red, and 1 red star.

These photos show the entire order just the way they shipped for nearly 3 days from the hatchery in Missouri.

Here's our 8 plus the 5 we ended up selling in their first brooder box..  (A brooder box is basically a comfy mini coop with  a heat lamp to mimic the heat they would get from an actual mother hen.)

And now blog friends....here is your exclusive.  A sampling of the 174 pictures I took a few days ago when our 8 baby chicks had their first field trip out doors on a sunny warm day.  And yes, I did say 174. What can I say?  I like my chickens. :)  And baby chicks are just too cute of models to not take gobs of pictures.

We decided to name this grey and brown Americauna, Muffy.  It was the little man's idea.  Since she first arrived, she's been a little round puff ball (although she's lengthening out more now) and we had taken to calling her puffy. But I didn't want that to become her name so we started brainstorming something else that fit her but was a really name.  Muffy it is. :)

This one is my favorite photo I took of the day.

This one is a fav too.  The one moment where he looked gentle holding one of the chicks.

This white/grey/brown americauna is such a different bird.  Her little personality is different from the other chicks. She's quite comfortable with us.  She'll run to our hands when we put them in their box.  And just look at how she jumped right up on Shawn's shoe.  We were all a bit surprised when she did this.

Our little girls are so funny at this age. They're definitely not newborns anymore.  They don't fall asleep in their water trough anymore. :)  They're feathering out quickly.  Not quite looking like awkward teenagers, but more like young children when their permanent teeth come in.  They're naturally a bit disproportionate as their feet are growing a bit faster than their bodies.

Before long, I noticed that all the chicks were hanging out under my legs, as I was crouching down to photograph them.  Maybe they think of me as their mother hen.  The little miss told me how lucky she thought I was and that she wished she was me so she could be their mother hen.
I took the photo straight down to so you could see the chicks surrounding my feet--in the green garden clogs.

And then that white one did something really strange.  She jumped right up onto my leg.

Then when she saw the little babe coming for her, she jumped to my hand and ran up my arm.

Then kept runny from him as he continued to get closer.  Can you see the frustration on his face?  He just wanted to pet one of his beloved "bock-bocks".

Then she made herself comfortable.  Don't judge.  I promise I will not allow myself to be the subject of any future hoarding with animals shows.
But what a funny bird, huh?  I decided she's mine to name.  So I named her Clementine.

See there's those giant feet I was talking about.

This is one of our Welsummer chicks. They are so pretty.

Then the big girls came from the other end of the yard where they were foraging and broke up the party.  The black chicken here, Elvira, is top of the pecking order in our flock.  She passed out a few pecks because she was trying to claim the feed in their trough as her own.  But I didn't let her go too far.  I let them mingle momentarily, then shooed the big girls away and scooped the chicks back into their box.  I suppose I am their mother hen.

I'll keep you all posted as the new ones continue to grow and change.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures.