We started daydreaming about getting chickens right after we moved out here. Adam had friends that were raising them and we both grew with enthusiasm about doing it ourselves. It just took such a long time before we could get our ducks in a row to do it. (going to use as many bird phrases as possible, for fun) Adam researched it all, figured out what kind of birds he wanted to get, what was involved with feeding them, keeping them, egg production, cleaning, etc. I am now convinced that one can accomplish almost anything with the help of YouTube. Finally, we just had to pull the trigger and order them, if only so that we could stop talking about how we were going to get them someday...
At the end of May last year we got a call from the post office that our chicks were there for pick up. They came in a box, just a couple of days old. We had ordered 15 pullets; 5 Speckled Sussex, 5 Black Australorps and 5 Easter Eggers. Cackle Hatchery gave us one extra chick, for a total of 16, but one died in the first few days and we gave one of our Easter Eggers to a friend who had lost one of their chicks. 14 left. All of these chicks were supposed to grow up to be good layers. We used the porch area inbetween our house and our garage (it’s enclosed) and set up a kiddie pool for them. Adam still needed to build the coop, but he had time before they would need it.
Our kids thought this was very fun! We got the chicks right around Johnny’s birthday and when school got out, so there was lots happening and fun people coming and going. We enjoyed sharing our family project with visitors.
Right away we could tell “the girls” had distinct personalities. Adam named our white Easter Egger “Marilyn”—she was the lead hen for sure. There was “Sugar”, “Ruth”, “Gloria”, “Esther”... We had names for the chicks we could identify. I was pretty busy with training right around that time, but Adam made a special point to handle the chicks regularly in order that they would be used to being held well adjusted around people, especially children.
End of Part 1.
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