Well, two weeks of chicken ownership has been wonderful! We didn't lose a single chick, no health issues, they grew so fast, and are nice healthy birds! But unfortunately, not all of them were the birds we wanted... We *thought* we had 12 Buff Orpington chicks, and thought the 8 darker ones maybe just had different parents or were just darker birds or something... Well, as they grew, so did their feathers, and as their feathers came in with patterns, we realized something wasn't right... It took until they were very nearly 2 weeks old before we were able to positively identify the 8 darker birds as Rhode Island Reds, a very beautiful breed no doubt, but not the right breed for us. For one, they aren't as cold hardy and wouldn't do well in the winter here, and for two they are prone to be a more aggressive breed, and probably wouldn't get alone with the 4 Orpingtons we did have once they got older. But thankfully, thanks to Craigslist we were able to find the Reds a new home, and take the 4 Orpingtons to Red's mom Kayla, and get 8 new Buff Orpington chicks for ourselves, all in one day! Ca-RAY-zy! So now we have 8 weeny teeny little yellow puffballs (and yes, this time they ALL are Orpingtons!), they are 4 days old today (or thereabouts, we got them on Wednesday, and are assuming they were day-olds then), and already have grown quite a bit. It really is remarkable the difference in their behavior even at this tender age compared to how the Reds were, the first batch of chicks were constantly peeping and chirruping, but this batch is quite quiet in comparison! They aren't as fond of being fed special treats (cracked wheat and oats) by hand by us yet, whereas the Reds weren't too shy of a hand full of treats, but these are much more tolerant of being picked up and held, whereas the Reds were very skiddish even at 2 weeks old of a hand without treats... Anyways, this new batch are healthy and doing well, and we're excited to get our flock right the second time ;)
(On a personal note, today is Wyatt's 3rd Birthday!!! My poor baby boy is so sick with a nasty tummy bug, and we've had to postpone his party, but we still have special stuff to do with him tomorrow even if he can't have friends over :( Poor kiddo! I think Red and I are more upset about it than he is though!)
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