Rasing chickens from scratch (No pun intended for my fellow chicken raising friends.) is a constant learning experience. Last night we realized the Sunday paper did not make it as long as we thought for lining the cage. After all, that's all the "Communist Appeal" in Memphis is good for.
Well, Amy was making her nightly Starbucks run and noticed that they had several Wall Street Journals left over. So my brilliant bride asked the clerk what they did with the newspapers at the end of the day. The guy told her if she wants the papers she coulod have them!
Now may ladies will have a clean cage for a long time.
The birds survived the night! I was a bit concerned since we had a series of tornado warnings/watches and storms that knocked out power about 4 times last night.
Over Easy appears to have PBS - Pasty Butt Syndrome. Thanks to Google I learned that this is a common condition as a result form the stress of transportation or dehydration. So the bird's butt had to be soaked, wiped and down clipped. Poor lady is but a week old and already had it's first Brazilian!
Since the kids wanted to hold the birds while the cage was changed ( I had to go back to work :-( and over-slept) my wonderful bride had to deal with a poopie cage, a nasty chicken butt and 6 children by herself.
I'll to better tomorrow Pookie!
I have wanted chickens for a long time, and I figured that there was no better time to get the "lovely ladies" than two days after we move. O.K. there could have been a better time, but I could not wait to have fresh eggs!
Today, my lovely bride, Amy, and I decided to trek up to the the Local Tractor Supply Store to begin the adventure. When we arrived we were disappointed to found no birdies. Dejected, we headed home. On the way back we passed a local feed and seed store and decided to stop. What a gold mine we found. Not only did they have a parcel of perfect peepers they had everything wee needed. The staff spent a lot of time answering our questions and giving us some sound advice.
After choosing four Black Sex Links and 2 Barred Rocks we began to collect supplies. The clerk was so helpful and even let us borrow the cage until the chick are ready for the coop.
Let me introduce the ladies: Omelet, Over Easy, Hard Boiled, Scramble, Sunny, and McMuffin.
If you are interested in starting out in anything agricultural I would suggest visiting a local feed store first. Sure TSC is large and has lots of cool stuff, but nothing can compare to the one-on-one personal attention you get with a smaller local company.
Going on the suggestion from the sales clerk, to save money, we used one of the kids reading lamps and added a 60W bulb to keep the chicks warm. Notice the feeder and water bottle? These cost me a $1.75 each. They attach to a small mouth Mason jar that I "commandeered" from my mom. Cost for feed, 6 chicks and feeders came to under $30.00.