Thursday, February 25, 2010

Chickies!!!

Yesterday I went to buy scratch for our poultry. We have 2 ducks, 2 roosters (that's another story), and 6 hens (that is part of the other story). After wandering through the plant section - o.k., so it was a quick wander because it was very cold - I went inside where I heard very cute little bird sounds. My first thought was that for some odd reason, someone had brought their pet birds to work. Then I thought, that's silly. Some outside birds must have somehow gotten trapped inside the store. I have seen that happen. (In fact, one time I rescued a hummingbird that had flown into a store and couldn't find its way out.) Well, that wasn't the explanation either. The store had little chicks for sale and they were making the sweet little peeping sounds. But these weren't the yellow chicks I expected to see. They were black.




Today I went back to the store and bought 4 little black chickies! They are so soft and sweet and cute! The sign said they are Barred Rock, which, if you don't know (I didn't until I looked it up) are those beautiful black chickens with white flecks or "bars." I asked if they were female or a mixed lot and was assured that they were all female. I've never had little chicks before; we got our other chickens after they were grown. My new little chickies will be my work chickens. The ones we already have are more just for fun and some eggs. The new ones will live in my garden either in a chicken tractor (google that one if you don't know what it is) or in a movable pen, so I can change what part of my garden they are digging up and fertilizing for me. Until they get a little bigger - they are 3 days old - and it gets a little bit warmer, I have cute little peeping noises coming from a cardboard box in - where else - my living room!


(I gave them some chickweed {ha-ha} but they just pecked at it rather than eating it.)

Have a beautiful day!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

OOOh, Oooh, they are so cute! I love barred rocks. Although I never had that kind, Logan did, and they were my favorites. Like a live pillow with ticking. :-)
-Janice
(I'll be signing 'jw' from now on)

Anonymous said...

How do your other birds in the living room like them? :)

-M

Ruth said...

M - I thought maybe the parakeet, Mr. Blue, would like the sound of the chickens, but but the birds don't seem to pay any attention to the fact that there are chickens in the house.

Ruth said...

O.K. jw! :) The little chicks are so cute! I like to hold them and they are pretty tame so it will be fun to keep them that way. I've always thought barred rocks were beautiful, even though I didn't know that is what they were called.