Saturday, April 11, 2009

Experiments in Poultry


The chicks: (clockwise from left): Miss Kitty, Skittles, Olive, Muffin and Liz Lemon.





My husband and I have been talking about getting chickens ever since we moved into our house nearly 4 years ago. He is allergic to all of the normal sorts of pets, and I was dying for a source for fresh eggs that didn't require a 20 mile trek to the farmer's market. Last weekend my fortunately handy-husband got to work building us a chicken coop and today was the day we got our new babies.

We drove to Stanwood (about an hour North of our home in Lynnwood) to meet a man named Tim we found on craigslist (really, is there anything you CAN'T find on craigslist?) Tim breeds chickens and sells coops and supplies. He sold us 5 darling little chicks and directed us toward the local feed store. Our poor chicks complained bitterly about being bumped around in a cardboard box on my lap on the drive, but eventually they settled down and took a nap. It seems they like the radio, especially Britney Spears.

At the feed store we only found one kind of chick food, called scratch. I had a bad feeling about this because I had read that scratch is like candy for chickens-- you give it to them as a snack but it's not meant to be their main food. Sure enough, we got home and looked it up and our new babies were having candy corn for dinner. So back to a closer feed store where we got them some more nutritious feed.

It will be 4 or 5 months before our baby chickens are old enough to start feeding us-- until then their chicken "playpen" is dominating our living room. We are enjoying their silly antics and the sweet sound of their peeping.

2 comments:

jpbulow said...

Keep us posted on the chicks. I too would like to have chickens one day. Great job with your blog! The design makes me want to come back for more!

H. Crow said...

I'm very eager to hear how this goes! How exciting for you! Also - lovely layout.