Baby Chicks

Our first chick hatched on a Friday night after the boys were in bed.  When they woke up they went to the basement to check on the eggs and they found 9 baby chicks and more eggs ready to hatch!  They were so thrilled!

When I arrived downstairs, I got to watch the boys experience the tenth baby hatch.  All day long we saw more and more break out of their shells.  We had lots of friends and family stop by to see.  It was fun to share the experience with others.

On Saturday evening we put the dry fluffy chicks from the incubator into the brooder box.  Because the new babies are so unstable, Mark left the shavings out of the box for a day.  They learned very quickly where the food and water was.

At this time we got to hold the chicks for the first time with our Hsiao cousins.  I was nervous about how the chicks would hold up, but I don't think I had anything to worry about.  They were all fine and we had some happy kids.

 Meanwhile in the incubator there were still more chicks to hatch.  They slowly just kept coming.

On Sunday we had a lot of friends come see the chicks and by the afternoon the 7 eggs still in the incubator were showing no signs of hatching.  Two of them started with pips and then did not make it, and the others never started hatching.  We left them in the incubator for another day to make sure.  In the end we had 33 chicks hatch and I'm happy to say three weeks later we still have those 33.

Then the fluffy chick love began!  Brand new baby chicks are the cutest thing on the planet and we had 33 of them in our basement!  We spent so much time with them.  Because Timmy only goes to school in the mornings, he and I spent our afternoons hanging out with those darling fluffy chickies.

 Mark took extra care to make sure their temperature was just right and that they always had food and water.  One chick we call Little Blacky had a funny crooked toe, so Mark taped it up for a few days and straightened it out.

One of the late hatchers was very small and did not eat or drink for days.  We could not figure out what was wrong with him, but Mark dripped vitamins into his mouth and tried to feed him.  We attempted to show him where to eat and drink to no avail.  Finally we concluded that he was blind because he would not follow the other chicks or do anything they were doing. We started calling him Blindy. One day we kind of gave up hope on him thinking he would be a gonner by the next day and then out of nowhere he just started eating and drinking and following the other chicks.  He is still very small, but after three weeks he is still alive and eating and drinking.  This is a picture of Mark trying to get him to eat something.

We ended up with quite a nice variety of colors.  It will be interesting to see what they look like as adults.  They stayed in our basement in their huge box Mark built for them for a week and a half.  Then they just started getting too stinky for us to stand it any longer.  When we would come home the whole house would smell like chicks, so one night I decided they had to go out to the barn.

 While the chickies waited in smaller boxes, I dragged/pulled/ripped that huge brooder box up the stairs and out to the barn.  Mark helped me set up the box with the lights etc. outside and I covered it with a blanket.  It just happened to be a very cold night and I had a restless sleep that night filled with dreams of waking up to all 33 chicks frozen to death outside, all because I could not stand their smell.  They were all just fine when we saw them in the morning and they've been fine ever since. The best part is that my house no longer smells like chickens.

Last night Mark finished closing in their chicken coop and we moved them in there.  Again none of them froze during the night and they seem very happy to have lot of room to run, peck and flap around.  They seem to be 33 happy chicks and they are growing so fast!  I'm glad I got pictures when they looked like this, because it seriously only lasted a few days!