Week One Done

Today marks one week with the chicks, and they’re all still with us! Hurray! The first night I could barely sleep because I was so worried they might not make it through the night. Being a rookie at caring for chicks it felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders those first couple of days and nights. But by the time they all reached night 3 with no issues, I started to relax a bit. They are so much fun to watch. Every morning and evening they are the first thing I check on (much to Maverick’s irritation). They have changed so much already!!

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When we got them we put them in the biggest metal bin we had. Within a few days they were already big enough to try to escape. While none of them actually escaped, one of the black ones jumped up on top of the food container and was getting ready to make the leap when my father-in-law saw her head poking out and foiled her plans. He then put a screen over the top and got to work on some plans for a brooder! Pretty exciting! We’ll get back to that in a minute. Throughout the week I started noticing more and more feathers coming in. Most of them have feathers on the ends of their wings and almost all of them are starting to get feathers at the base of their wings now too! So much fun to watch the changes. In other big news, they finally have names!!

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Harriett is the smallest (and my personal favorite), she’s spunky and curious; always one of the first to run up to my hand, and usually the first to jump onto my hand! She was a challenge to get pics of because she’s a speedy little runt! Edith is the second smallest and is entirely black, including her beak. She’s a little shy, I think she may be the youngest as she’s the last one without any feathers at the base of her wings yet, and the least amount of feathers on the tips of her wings. Evelyn is the paler cream of the two light colored chicks. She’s also a little shy, but she’ll come up and check out my ring occasionally when I put my hand in. Gladys is one of the largest and she’s got these awesome Egyptian eyeliner style eyes. She’s a little wild and likes to posture at Mable (furthest right) quite a bit. Goldie is (you guessed it!) the the more gold of the two light colored chicks. She often seems a little suspicious of any hands coming in, but she’s spunky and loves sprinting around whenever there’s any excitement. Mable is the motherly one. I’m pretty sure she’s in charge. Any time I poke my head in – even if they’re all sleeping – she’s the first one to open an eye and cock her head at me to check out my intentions. She’ll come right up to my hand like and give me the eye like, “now don’t you go tryin anything funny…” She’s pretty awesome.

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Then my father-in-law made the brooder. HOLY. GUACAMOLE. It turned out perfectly. It’s amazing. And the chicks all of a sudden had enough space to start sprinting around. Absolutely addicting to watch. I have such a hard time focusing on school when there’s so much more fun happening so close! I was told you’re supposed to handle chicks a lot when they’re young so they grow up into friendlier chickens, but it’s so hard to catch them now!! They’re getting incredibly fast now that they can run whenever they want to! My father-in-law constructed the brooder out of wood he salvaged from the addition burn pile! I’m so grateful for my family and all of the time and skills they input.

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Basically, the chicks are super distracting, super fun, a teensy bit stressful (I’m a worrier), and entirely entertaining. Here’s some close ups!

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Throughout the many chick photoshoots, Maverick has been impatient and needy. I think he’s equally excited as stressed about the newcomers. I’m fairly certain he’s jealous of all the attention they’ve been getting. So he and Oliver got close ups as well so they would feel included. Mav looks ashamed of the footprints he left all over the place haha

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We also got quite a bit of work done on the Cabin this weekend! We got the rest of the addition torn down and are ready to start on the restoration portion of the massive project! Here’s the update on what we got done this weekend!