Good Night, Sleep Tight

   This is Sleepy. She is my double laced Barnevelder.

   As some of you might remember from an earlier post, Sleepy was not her original name. She was going to be Penny. Sleepy was just a nickname that stuck. 

   Something you don't know is that Sleepy might not have survived as a chick. When you first get your chicks, you are supposed to dip their beaks in water. They don't know what it is yet. If you don't do this, the chicks will not drink and can die of dehydration.

   For some reason, Sleepy did not get her introduction to water. She was not drinking. So, my sister and I had to do something. I took a teaspoon of water and had to get her beak into it.

She was not happy with us. She was afraid of the water and wouldn't touch it.

   Then finally, we got her beak to touch the water. She was shocked. She paused for a moment then drank as much as she could!

(The water in the cup is yellow because of a additive we bought that helps the chicks.)

   Now that Sleepy has grown up, she is absolutely gorgeous!

   Sleepy is shy. She is so shy. Sometimes, if she is thinking about sitting on my lap and I look at her, she will run away. I think she is on the bottom of the pecking order, so this can explain her nervousness. 

   However, when she gets over her shyness, she is actually a very sweet little bird!

Easter Egg

   Well, once we got one egg, more were soon to follow. I have been getting eggs all this week. One day we got four eggs!

I don't know why the last egg looks white... It is really is about the color of the egg next to it.

   But then, yesterday we got something extra special!

   Piper laid her first egg! She is an Easter Egger, which means, you guessed it, she lays colored eggs!

Piper's egg just happens to be this lovely blue. Other Easter Eggers can lay green eggs.

   Now if you were wondering, the eggs are completely safe to eat. There is nothing that makes them different from a regular egg. Except the color of course!

   Also, each chicken only lays one color. So we will always get these blue eggs from Piper. I am definitely not complaining though! What a cool color!

It is a perfect funny little egg from my perfect funny chicken.

Snowed In

   Thanks to winter storm Cato, in a matter of hours my yard went from late fall to a mid-winter wonderland!

   Also thanks to Cato, our seemingly perfect fencing system is in ruins. Driving around my town you can see tons of downed branches and we were no different. Luckily this didn't fall on the coop! However, it did fall on the electric fence.

   I am writing this just as our power came back on. It has been out for five days including Thanksgiving! Luckily we had a generator and family with power close by.

A funny snowman I helped my sister make!

   The chickens were, no are, not happy with the snow. None of them have dared to touch it yet. I have tried to bribe them out with treats but they still refuse.

Here Daisy was considering touching the snow.

When she decided not to and turned away she slipped and almost fell out. She freaked out flapped her way back in. (Sigh.)

   Something else exciting happened this week. Don't worry; good exciting. Come back next week to hear all about it!

Add Insult to Injury

   I saw this the last time I was out with the chickens. This is just another example of Piper's...   stupidity? That sounds so mean... Let's just say confused curiosity.

This is when Piper notices the bucket. 

Note that Raven is in this picture but not the next. She realized in that time that buckets are not interesting.

Piper has a very different opinion. 

She looks closely at the bottom of the bucket.

Then she looks at the top of the bucket.

The inside of the bucket is next.

Then the bottom of the bucket... again...

And the top again... In case it changed? I guess you never know...

What a sweet, silly chicken!

Review: My Pet Chicken

  

 "My Pet Chicken" is the website/company that I bought my chicks from. This is a review of my experience.

   The website itself was wonderful! It had lots of breeds; both rare and common. Ordering the chicks was easy and fast. They also offered Marek's shots for the chicks. This was very important to me.

   Also, the customer service was fantastic! I emailed with a question about shipping and multiple question's about the chicks (I tend to overreact). They emailed back very quickly with very good information.

 
   Next, the shipping. This was perfect! They arrived the day after they hatched by 11:00. (This is especially impressive since the chicks were shipped from Ohio.) The box had air holes and a little heat pack which was still warm when it got to me.

   I was very impressed with the chicks themselves, as well. They all came alive and healthy. I got ONLY the number of chicks I ordered (some companies send extra for warmth), which was very nice. Also, I got my chicks sexed and so far as I can tell they are all girls.

   In fact, there was only one problem I had with this company. The cost.

   I did get some expensive rare breeds, but the cost of shipping itself was high. I didn't mind the cost because I was very specific about breeds and gender. However, if you are not willing to pay much for chicks, this is probably not your place.

  Overall, I very highly recommended this company! See you next Monday!

Beauty Is In the Eye of the Beholder

   Many people have seen chicks. Lots of people have seen chickens. But, unless you have raised chickens, you probably haven't seen their "teenage stage".

   They go in cute...

They come out beautiful...

But in the middle, well, all you can do in wait...

Pin feathers (a growing feather surrounded by a feather shaft) start to poke though the chick fluff.

You can see this in Nutmeg's tail (above).

Sleepy might have been the worst. It was... not pretty.

Sweet little Daisy. Her molt was not as bad as the other's for some reason.

Oh, Piper and those big puffy cheeks...

Wow sorry... A lot of pictures in this one. But, are there ever too many pictures of chicks?

Have a good week!

Nose in a Book

   So if you been on my blog before you may or may not know that I am a high school student. When I get home from school I do one of two things.

Go out with the chickens...

Or do homework.

Last week, I decided to multitask. 

   I had some reading to do for my humanities class. The last chapter or two of Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephan Crane. (By the way, not my favorite book.)

So, I grabbed my book and headed out to the chicken pen. 

As I talked about last week, the chickens are very... interested in, well, everything.

   When they stole my bookmark. I was alright with it. Kind of.

   Please don't get me wrong, I am usually very careful with books. But, unfortunately to chickens, I guess, books look delicious. 

Note to self: No more multitasking.