The Chickens Are In The Building

This morning I went to Meriden Feed and Supply and picked up our six Barred Rock chicks in a cardboard box. Peter, our 2 year old, chuckled when he peeked over the top of the box and saw the black fuzzy peeping chicks. They (the chicks, Peter was safely in his car seat) rode home on the floor of the front seat passenger side, peeping all the way, trying to gain their footing as I stopped and started, and clamoring into the sunny corner of the box. About half-way home I decided that I better stop trying to see into the box or I would rear-end someone. Try explaning that one to the police...


So, by the time we got home the chicks had snuggled in the sunny corner of the box and had pretty much stopped peeping. Peter had fallen asleep, which gave me time to set up the heatlamp, fill the waterer, get the starter ration (chick food for all you novices) out of the car and served up in the "brooder box" (sounds much more fancy than the cardboard box on newspapers that it is), and the chicks gently placed in their new home in the garage. Happily they started scratching and eating the tasty vittles and slurping up the water.


Here they are:

You want to see a close up you say? Here you go, and in the second one, don't worry, Charlotte is not nuzzling the chick:

We are still adjusting the lamp/heat source. If it's too hot, all the chicks cluster in the corners of the box, if it's too cold, they all bunch up in the middle. Nice of them to use that indicator. Also, the paper towels are down for the first few days so they can find the food, not just scratch in the litter, and so the shavings aren't too tough on their feet.

A moth flew into the box under the light this evening and did that ever stop the chicks in their tracks! A few tried to chase it, but it was too high. They do eat ants if you throw them in, but my book doesn't say anything on insect supplementation at this point, so we're going light on ants.

Oh, and we had ice cream with chocolate syrup tonight for dessert: