Baby Chick Pics, At Two Months Old!

Welp, today was the final day of Chickam for this year, so we took pictures of the chicks, trimmed their wings, and flung the little stinkers outside. They'll stay in the small run today, go into the big run with the adults at dusk (darkness minimizes bullying since chickens can't see squat in the dark) and then tomorrow they'll get let loose in the yard with everyone else. Today is dark and thunderstormy, which my camera HATES--so apologies for the funky focus on some of the pictures.

So here, in the same order as their baby pics two months ago, are the chicks! No roosters yet that we know of...but Orpingtons and Brahmas are slow to mature so it might take a while to know for sure.

Arson, a hen (hopefully) hatched from eggs we got from our neighbor who runs a mixed flock of Dark & Light Brahmas, Salmon Faverolles, Australorp, and Barred Rocks. Time will tell what Arson turns out to be, but so far is looking very much like a dark Brahma--at least in part, she's kinda small. Arson was the only survivor of the chicks we hatched ourselves.

Such a cute face!

Feed store chicks next. All are pullets (hens) except for Mjolnir, who is a straight run (mixed hens/roos) chick.

Apricot, a Welsummer hen, who won the Queen of the Buttheads award during picture time hands-down.

Criminy, you'd think from those pictures that we were gonna eat her. Not that we weren't giving it some serious consideration at this point, because most of her pics look like this:

 Here, Apricot practices her sneak:

Frittata, a Danish Brown Leghorn hen.

 Anchoring herself by standing on her own feet.

Mjolnir (straight run, which means an unsexed batch of chicks, so time will tell if hen or roo!), a buff Orpington chick.

 

 

Bu Lu, a black Jersey Giant hen.

 

Bu Lu stayed true to form and kept trying to escape during picture time, so I got four or five pics of her like this:

These are two Smokey Pearl hens--a new breed for us. Don't know much about them, but they sure are pretty! Their first suit of real feathers came in white with a gray tinge, the random black streaks really came in. They keep the black as adults but their feathers will be a pretty gray-blue.

Sesame, who has lovely slatey-grey legs (and skin!) and dark beak. Sesame apparently rolled in her food this morning, topping off her look with an alfalfa leaf stuck to the top of her beak.

 

Beautiful chick...with a green leaf stuck to her beak. *sigh...*

Yep, another picture that looks like it should come attached to a ransom note.

Lastly, here is Enkidu, our other Smokey Pearl hen. Interesting that her face isn't dark like Sesame's is. The best behaved of the bunch today!

 

Enkidu was the chick with the cute 'lil black heart-shaped spot on her left thigh...sadly, it's grow out. But as this is just her first suit of feathers, we'll wait and see what her first REAL suit of adult feathers looks like, when those blue-gray feathers come in!

This was a rambunctious batch!

Is That REALLY How You Sleep?

Yes. Yes it is. All seven of them, ignoring the perfectly good roost across the top of the brooder box, or even the edge of the box itself.

Oh, no. Instead, everyone cram onto the top of the too-small wire cage we placed because they kept walking across the laptop and changing the settings. The final straw was when we went out and discovered a pop-up asking if we were sure we wanted to reformat something or other. Once they started roosting here at night, we placed an old towel to protect the laptop from being pooped to death.

And yes, this IS how Bu Lu sleeps.

Tomorrow will be the final day of Chickam for this year. The kid and I will get fresh chick pics to post here, then they get booted out into the flock. No overt roosters so far...

Then I've got my work cut out for me digging into my equipment to figure out what went wrong with our hatch so it doesn't happen again.