Spring is an exciting time at the farm for many reasons, pretty spring flowers in the yard, starting seeds in the greenhouse, the chickens begin to lay eggs more regularly, our beehives begin buzzing with activity, but I have to say the most exciting part about spring is baby chicks! We don’t add new chicks to the flock every year, and when we have added new chicks over the last several years we’ve always had broody chickens raise up the next generation of chicks in the chicken coop. The last time we raised chicks in the house was back in 2012 when we bought two dozen chicks for the farm. It’s messy raising chicks indoors, and it was especially so when we raised those two dozen in the kitchen! The chicks kick up a lot of dust scratching around in the pine shavings that line the bottom of their pen, and it’s not long before a fine coating of dust covers everything, floor to ceiling, in the room that the chicks are raised in. Since 2012, whenever we’ve added chicks we have opted for the easy way of raising chicks by letting a broody hen do all of the work. But doing it that way means that the chicks don’t get handled as much and as a result, when the chicks grow up they tend to not be quite as calm and friendly around people as the chicks that are raised indoors.
It’s been a couple of years now since we lost our bantam rooster, Lil’ Red Rooster, that used to live in the coop on the back deck. I’ve long wanted to get another bantam rooster to protect our three bantam hens, Millie, Salt-n-Pepa, when they are out free ranging on nice days. But for a while we just had too much going on with the turkeys, or special needs chickens requiring extra care, and I just did not feel like I had the time to deal with adding a bantam rooster to our little back deck feathered family. Bringing in a new flock member requires a period of quarantine and then gradual introduction to prevent too much fighting or bullying, and I wanted to wait until I had the time to do things right. We’ve recently bid a sad farewell to a couple of our special needs flock mates and now that we have a good handle on the turkey set-up and they are pretty self sufficient, I find that I have more time and could consider adding a bantam rooster. However, we weren’t really planning on adding chicks to the farm this year because we have a big construction project planned in the backyard. This will mean a smaller pasture for the chickens, and also the construction noise will likely disturb them a bit so it’s not really the ideal time for adding new chicks to the flock.
In years past, our local feed store has only carried the more popular breeds of chicks that are known for being good layers. This year as I was looking at the chick calendar (any self respecting feed store will post a schedule of the dates that they are receiving chick shipments and which breeds they are receiving on which days), I was pleasantly surprised to see that they would be getting several specialty breeds of chickens, rare breeds, and some fancier breeds. When I saw that they were getting two breeds of bantam chicks that I was interested in, my heart was instantly set on getting some. Despite having recently decided now was not the best time to add more chicks, I rationalized that bantams are so small, surely there was room to add just a few more. Also, my social media feeds were being inundated with all of my chicken lady friends’ adorable baby chicks, and my resolve was quickly weakening (#chickenmath, it’s a thing!) After a surprisingly easy sales pitch to my husband, we agreed that not only were new chicks in order, they could even live in the house! Chicks at the feed store are typically sold as sexed females, meaning that there is an approximately 90% chance that the chicks you buy will actually be girls. But bantam chicks are so small when they are born that it is not possible for them to be sexed into males and females, and so they are sold as “straight run” meaning that there is a 50% chance of getting either males or females. So knowing this, and knowing the knack I seem to have for unintentionally picking boys, I decided to get six chicks hoping that three would grow up to be girls. I got one black silkie, two white silkies, and three Mille Fleur D’Uccle chicks. I had been wanting Mille Fleurs ever since 2012 when we bought Millie (our bantam silkie) as a chick thinking she was a Mille Fleur. I didn’t find out until she started feathering out that she was not a Mille Fleur but was a silkie. So now was my chance to finally get some Mille Fleurs, and I sure hope that at least one of them grows up to be a hen! If you are not familiar with the breed, you should Google them, they are gorgeous birds. I’ve had the new chicks two weeks now, they are all thriving and keeping me company in the brooder that I have set up in my home office. I’m not getting much work done lately, but I am having lots of fun and taking lots of baby photos!
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