One of my favorite things in the world is little fuzzy butt baby chicks. We have 11 new baby chicks added to our family! Thankfully a local hardware store, Callahan’s, receives large shipments of day old chicks from Ideal Poultry hatchery in Cameron, Texas a couple hours away from here. This means very young and cheap chicks for us, without the worry of a small shipment of chicks getting cold, lost or hurt in the mail and also the benefit of being able to see what the chicks look like before purchase (an almost requirement of mine as you may know). The hard part: picking out which chicks you want!
Here are the breeds we ended up with:
2 Silver Laced Wyandotte
2 Spangled Russian Orloffs
1 Speckled Sussex
1 Black Australorp
1 Buff Orpington
2 Ameraucana
2 Bantam Cochins (specific breed unknown)
chicks checking out my vinyl collection
We put them in these big clear tubs, which works out well because we can see what they are up to at all times and it seems they are equally curious what we are up to. They need to be 95F and protected from drafts in this fragile stage, but soon enough they will be strong enough to stay outside in the coop with a light on. They are sure to let you know if they are not comfortable by how loud they are able to peep. I like to scoop them up a couple times a day and check for pasty butt (dangerous clogs) and to get them used to me. Some will pass right out in my hand with a few little pets on their head.
They grow up really quickly and their fuzz will soon become feathers. They already spend a lot of time preening. In a few weeks they will go through a rough looking adolescence where they have patchy feathers and fuzz and they look a mess. I plan on having a little chicken photoshoot before then so I can get some good shots of them in natural light while they still have fuzzy butts.
