Nesting Syndrome

I've heard that pregnant people get this "nesting" syndrome right before the baby is born. They do stuff like remodel the kitchen, paint the nursery, etc. I got a literal case of the Nesting Sydrome. I ordered 25 chicks from the McMurray Hatchery in Iowa.

The truth is, we started with 28 chicks. McMurray throws in one free exotic mystery chicken with your order - and for some reason, with this order, they added a couple extra besides. The week after we got back from India, the one-day old chicks arrived via the United States Postal Service. I got the call on Monday morning at 7 a.m. "Your chicks are here. Come and get them." And so we did. They are there in that box. It was love at first sight. Also, I was a little flustered and nervous, because not only have I never taken care of chickens before in my life, but their coop wasn't ready yet. I had every lamp in the house shining on them while I hurried and built their starter pen in the barn from scrap wood, complete with 250 watt red lamp.

Mortlity rate is 3.5%. We lost one the second day. They are five weeks old now. There is rapid growth and change each day.

I'm not sure what brand the mystery chicken is. But the other ones are a variety as chosen by friends and family. There are golden polish, egyptian fayoumis, araucana (the "easter egg" chicken), white wyandotte, buff rock, white cochins, etc. One day they will all be given a Proper Name. Though I am a little dubious of such Naming actually transpiring - mainly because Briton and I are having a hard enough time coming up with a name for our own offspring.

During May, while the chicks were growing by leaps and bounds in their mini-coop, Briton, with the help of Mike and Natalie, were busy building a state of the art coop behind the barn (lots of ventilation). Scrap wood came from home construction site remnant piles and leftover fencing from the Baxters.















Some of the chicks at 5 weeks old, the day half of them were transferred to the big coop. Aren't they cute?