Growing Chicks

The baby chicks are babies no more! The baby fuzz is being replaced with real feathers and they have just grown so much in only a couple weeks. I caught one of the little girls standing on top of the waterer this morning, to the dismay of her sisters. They were squawking at her, trying to get her to come down. I think they were probably jealous and wanted to try out that trick for themselves. They are now entering the “what can we tip over?” phase.

Their living quarters have been upgraded to a larger box, or rather a duct-taped concoction made from multiple boxes. I am layering newspaper on the floor and covering that with a fluffy layer of straw. Every few days I change out the entire bedding, when it starts to smell too much like farm animal in our guest bedroom.

I didn’t handle them too much during their first week in the big world. They seemed so skittish and I didn’t want to add any stress to them while they were still so vulnerable. Now they have adjusted and all seem to be very healthy, including the runt. I figured it was time to get them used to being around and handled by humans. The best way to win chickens over seems to be bribing them with food. Therefore, I picked up some small-sized grit to help them break down new foods and placed that in the box. Once they figured out what that was, I started introducing treats that I hand-feed them.

The first treat was some cooked rice with chick feed sprinkled in, which the video here shows. Today I introduced them to worms and it took only as few seconds for them grab them from my hand and run wildly around the box inhaling the loot. My grown chickens seem to be snobs about what vegetables they will eat. It would be great if these chicks weren’t like that so much, so I might be trying to get them interested in veggies next.

It’s so funny to wake up in the morning to soft bird chirping and not be too sure if it’s coming from outside or inside your house 🙂