Sad Story

     I am sure you all saw the new pictures of the chicks that I posted two weeks ago. Everyone was doing alright until last week. From the start we had to keep the babies and the two ducks separate from one another. So we had all of the chicks in the cages in the garage. This worked perfectly until they started to outgrow the small cage. Well, that was not too terrible because it was still relatively warm outside, and the chicks were big enough to stand the cold as long as they had Psyche and a heat light near them. All of the male chicks stayed in their large cage to await the time when they would grow mature enough to be able to be placed out at my grandpa's 9 acres. This is because we are not aloud to house roosters within the city limits. But they are amlost big enough!

New picks, and sad news.

     Well, I have good news, and not so good news. As I had told you, we were expecting our chickens to arrive soon. They arrived! On Thursday of last week, we received 14 brand new healthy baby chicks. We bought 2 Silver Laced Cochin Bantams, 2 Golden Laced Polishes, 2 Quail Belgian D'anver Bantams, and 2 Mille Fleur D'uccle Bantams. Considering there were only eight one-day old baby chicks being shipped to us, there would not have been enough heat for them to survive. In order to keep these babies warm enough, they placed six little males in the box with them.
     Alright, unfortunately… I have to tell you the bad news. Out of the 2 Quail Belgians we were given, there was one male and one female. The female seemed to be very disoriented from the start, but she was still my favorite. I named her Cricket. Cricket was out in the yard in the cage with the rest of her friends, but when we got home, we found that she was missing.  We try to keep on the bright side of things, but deep down we know that she is no longer here. :(     
      Anyway, (back to a happy note) I was able to take my weekly Friday pictures of all of these babies now that they are a week old, and they are now able to be handled. These pictures are posted below along with captions, and the name of the chicken. (except for the males) I will not be taking pictures of each and every one. I will choose my favorite chicks or the best ones to take pictures of, and I will continue to take their pictures every Friday. Keep a watch out for more pictures! Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you continue to follow my blog posts!

New chickens, and chicken check-up

     Hello fellow chicken lovers. I have not been posting lately, because there has not been very much to post about. But, now I have some very exciting news. Pelo, our crested duck has grown to his full size, and is officially a boy. (His tail curled up.) We also acquired two new mallard ducklings for free from a friend of ours. We have a hunch that one is a boy, and one is a girl. Oh no! We really are not in the mood for more male ducks. Anyway, the duck that we think is a boy is named Perry. (After "Perry the Platypus") The one that we think is a girl, is named Houdini, the escape artist.
     Okay, so leaving the duck subject... we have also ordered a few more chicks (like six or seven) and they should be arriving sometime really late tonight. I am so excited! Most of the ones that I ordered are bantams, meaning we are going to be eating some tiny eggs! But we also got a few standard breeds. (Including 2 polishes... YAY!) I will select two or three of my favorite chickens, and I will continue to take weekly pictures of them so that you can keep up with their growth. Oh ya... I almost forgot! The site I ordered these chickens from was called http://www.ideal-poultry.com/. This is an AMAZING site to order your chickens from, if you are only trying to buy a few chickens. The only draw-back is, that if you buy less than 25 chicks, they will place male chicks in the box with your order (free of charge) so the chicks will stay warm. With our male chicks, we are just going to put them out where we keep our horses, because of course you are not aloud to have roosters within the city limit. So to close up this post I will ask all  of my readers to tell your friends, family, neighbors, and in-laws about this amazing blog, because I would love for people to know all about my chickens! Thank you everyone, I will have pictures of the new babies, and new posts coming soon!

unfortunate chickens

   Well fellow chicken lovers... I am extremely upset to share my bad news with those of you who are reading this. My two new babies, and the big duck died. Heeby and Jeeby both died by drowning in our new stock tank. Heeby died the day I left for Texas, which was the 17th of June, and Jeeby died on June 25th. I'm sorry I have not been posting, but this is the reason for my falling behind. Puddle died on June 24th, because he was attacked by some kind of animal. This devastaded my sister, because he was her special show duck. On top of all this stress, I found out that Psyche has mites, because Wyoming has had so much moisture this year. This year holds the record for most birds having mites... or so I am told. She also has some kind of infected, broken feather on her back that my mother and I had to lance and try to get rid of as soon as we could. We were told that if we did not do this, she might receive blood poisoning and could possibly die from it. We could not stand for anymore dead birds, so we canceled our trip to Minnesota, and instead we took the chicken out to the lake with us so that we could keep an eye on her for a few days. This way we still bring our boat out to the lake, and have some fun out on the water. Psyche seemed to be doing much better, so we dropped her off at our home, and my grandfather is now taking care of her while we left to go to Illinois and visit some family friends of ours. Hopefully she will feel better, and we can order some new chicks.
   Happy 4th of July everyone! Be sure to thank our troops this year. Hug your friends, say hello to your neighbors, love your family, and be thankful for everything you are given and able to do.

Ahh chickens...

   Well,.. just as I had promised I posted the first four pictures of the chicks along with the date the picture was taken. You will also see some other interesting pictures. This especially includes the picture of the poop. This morning, as I was holding Jeeby, she pooped on my arm leading my mother to take a picture of it. It was actually much worse than was shown in the picture, because the majority of it fell on to the floor. Gross! But I suppose this is the consequence for trying to raise chicks. It has been so much fun raising these little ones, however, it has still been quite a hassle. Between constant chirping, pooping, and "feed me now!", I have had two huge responsibilities on my hands. 
    Pelo was around one month old when we bought her so she is now old enough to be placed outside during the day and night. During the night, Pelo is actually placed in the chicken house with Psyche in order to be kept away from dangerous weather and animals. The babies are almost fully feathered meaning they too are getting ready to be on their own, with Psyche as a companion. We have read that if you are introducing new chicks to the rest of your flock of chickens, that you must wait until the chicks are fully feathered. When introducing them, it said to wait until the older chickens are asleep on their perch, then you simply place the new chickens in the roost beside them. That way, when the chickens wake up they will accept the new chickens. We will be trying this soon, and I am crossing my fingers hoping that it will work and Psyche will accept the new babies.

Blog day number 2!!!

Howdy everyone!!! This is my second day blogging and I am extremely excited for the days to come. 

These chicks, chickens, and ducks are all a 4-H project, so I am going to show my oldest chicken Psyche, and my sister will show Puddle in our county fair coming up. As for the chicks... they are still too young to be shown in the fair, but I can still do a project on them. I am going to be making a poster exhibiting the babies' growth each week. I take pictures of them every Friday, and as you know... today is Friday! So I will be taking their weekly picture today. I will also be sure to post these pictures at the bottom of the page so that all of you can enjoy keeping up with and observing how much they both grow each week.

Welcome to my blog!

Hello and welcome to my blog! Over the next few months I hope to share my experiences of raising and caring for chickens and ducks in my back yard with you. Let's start out by introducing you to my birds. The oldest is Psyche, pronounced sigh-key. She is a one year old Americauna named after the Greek woman who believed herself to be more beautiful than Aphrodite, the Goddess of Beauty. (You can thank my brother for naming her). Next in line is Puddle, a Cayuga duck.  He is one month younger than Psyche and actually belongs to my sister. Then there is the unlikely trio consisting of; Pelo, a one month old Crested Runner duck, Heeby, a 2 1/2 week old Production Red chick, and Jeeby, a 2 1/2 week old Buff Orpington chick.  Since they have been housed together for the last two weeks, these three are inseparable. We have yet to find out if Psyche will accept the babies.