Chicken Addicts

It all started about two weeks ago when a friend of Marc's remembered he was interested in chickens and asked if he wanted two baby chicks that needed a home. By the time he and I finished negotiating (I wanted them immediately, he wasn't sure we have space in the coop) the two babies had found another home.

Yesterday, my first day back from yet another conference (which is in it self another blog post) we had to go to the feed store to get our quickly growing chickens some more food. I went on the website of the feed store and discovered they had brand-new baby chicks available. Now I love our five, but since we got them at a few weeks old all but one would prefer I left them alone (although they do like to be talked to). I wanted new babies that I could handle daily so they would be used to it and be more friendly (did I mention my chickens are a cat substitute due to Marc's allergies?) So two more baby chicks came home with us, just a few days old. The brown baby is named Roxie-- she loves to be held and all day, and unfortunately all night, cried really loud whenever we put her down in the box. Poor Marc didn't get much sleep. The black and white baby, who to me looks like a Panda, earned the name "Flea" after we went to the grocery store and came back to find her outside of their two foot tall box-- she must be able to jump very high in order for her to have made that leap. We were also calling her Chocolate Muffin, because just like Muffin, she is loud. She also gets into everything-- she's going to be trouble that one.

So two more kids in our family-- the new babies won't be introduced to their big sisters until they are 8 weeks old, but they are all in the same room (in their respective boxes) and the big chicks seem to know they are there and are craning their necks to try and see what is out there. Maybe it's my imagination, but the little ones seem to take comfort in the racket of the older chickens. In two more weeks the big chicks will move outside for good, but for now we have one very smelly, noisy spare bedroom!

So seven is the lucky number-- I swear we are done now as the coop has for sure reached capacity now!