Baby Chick Update

It has been just over 2 weeks now and still no chicken coop.  The chicks are getting bigger and want out of the tote.  Yesterday Dawn had one get out and run across the living room floor.  Dawn said it was the funniest thing to watch, once the chick was out she looked around and then started squawking, like she was telling the others that they could do it too.  Apparently the others were cheering her on before she actually got out.

If you look at earlier pictures you can see the difference in the sizes.  They are really starting to get bigger and most have lots of feathers instead of fuzz.
We have had to separate some of them because they were pecking on one of the white ones.

It is amazing how fast they can trash their home.  Dawn cleans these tubs twice a day and has to fill the water and food 3 - 4 times a day.  The Cochin have feathers on their feet.  The one with the closest to the camera has tried to get out 7 times in the last 15 minutes.  She jumps up on the edge of the tote and looks around, the first time she jumped back in as soon as she saw me move, but the 4th time she was determined to get out.  I reached down to guide her back in the tote and she jumped on my arm as if she wanted a ride.  

Here is the poor little thing that was getting pecked on.  You can see that she has several feathers.  This one is has gotten on top of the box twice this morning and got on the floor once and then panicked when I reached down to pick her up to put her back in the box.  We diffidently have to put a screen over them today sometime.  

This is the progress so far.  Steve has been sick and still trying to work on it.  Charlie was out of town all weekend and is on his 15th straight day of work without a day off and is still trying to help as much as he can.  I tried to help, but all Steve would let me do was sort nails. Ugh, I hate sorting nails and screws.  That was a job my dad used to give me.  

This is the inside of the coop where the chicks will live in luxury each will have it's own nesting room, Steve made 6 nesting boxes and then the larger area on the right will be open for roosting.  The back side of the nesting boxes will have doors so we can gather the eggs easy without having to crawl inside to get them.

At the end we have a window for light and a door to the left for them to go to the yard it will have a ramp for easy access.  I am taking pictures through the area where we will have a door for cleaning. 

Steve and Charlie have put some extra boards up just to keep the rain off the tools for now.  It is small but we only really need it to house 5 laying hens long term.  I think it will work well for what we want.  All four of us have had a say in how we think it should be and what we have to have.  Dawn is the one who is going to be doing most of the egg gathering so we need the access where she can reach it.  I'm not saying she is short, just that she isn't as tall as the rest of us, and I am not much taller.

This is bringing back more memories than I thought it would.  We had a small farm in Odell, OR. when I was small and we had Cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, a opossum, goats, sheep, peacocks, geese and ducks.  Not to mention the acre and a half garden we grew every year. I am the youngest of 10 kids so it took a lot to feed all of us.  And that was outside.  Mom made the living room like a small museum with aquariums, we had an ant farm, snakes, lizards and hamsters/gerbils and spiders.  Mom took one of my dolls and made a Christening gown and hung it on the living room wall to show what some of the old time clothing looked like.  She made a papoose board and hung it next to the doll.  My Dad was a Black smith and Farrier and traveled among 5 counties shoeing horses.  So he would display some of his tools and have his forge hot and show how he could bend the hot shoes to fit the horses hooves.  The kids from Hood River Elementary would come out and tour our farm, every year.  They had never seen real chickens or brown eggs, or any other animal as far as that goes.  It was strange to us kids, that anyone would want to come see our home.  We didn't know others didn't live like we did.  We thought everyone had a list of chores to do when they got home.  Sometimes we would stay home (sick) and watch from the upstairs window just to see what they were looking at, and try to figure out why?

I hope you have enjoyed my story today.

Happy Scrapin,'

Janice