My lovely assortment of chicks have officially made it to the one month mark! At about 3 weeks old, they graduated to the handy-dandy chicken tractor to receive some much needed fresh air and more space. They also are now eating pellets, instead of crumble. It is important to always keep youngsters away from older hens. If you put them together too soon, you’ll quickly see nature’s “pecking order” in full swing. It is best to keep your babies separate until they are almost equal in size to full grown hens (about 4 months of age).

The chicks are almost fully feathered now, with the exception of their fluffy heads. They were a colorful assortment as babies, and still are! This has been the most rewarding batch of chicks I’ve ever had in terms of seeing their colorful plumage develop. Two of the chicks have little head feathers that stick straight up, not like a Polish, but like a Legbar. The Hoover’s Americana mix includes some from a strain of Cream Legbar linage- which is so neat!

 

The friendliest chick in the whole mix is a Sapphire Splash my toddler named Climber. (She likes to climb on the perch- so there you go. My toddler is very literal!) She is the easiest to catch and seems to always find her way to the front of the crowd to look directly in my camera.

Then there’s Sunny. Sunny is the beautiful, dark gray special needs chick. We don’t quite know what is wrong with her. From day one, she has acted dizzy and runs into stuff. She isn’t splay legged; it seems neurological. We even have thought she may be partially blind. Nevertheless, she eats, drinks, is slowly growing, and does her best to stick with the others. As long as she is mostly healthy, we will continue to help her out however possible.

We are loving our colorful mix of chicks and could spend hours a day watching them-and in the troubles of the world today, I am content to do just that!