Chickens and more chickens

Recently I decided to try raising chickens. More accurately I was on the fence about raising chickens when my daughter called from the feed store telling me they had chicks available. So it’s a joint project, 5 chicks going to live with her and 5 coming to call my place home. She has already suffered some loss but my 5 are getting on wonderfully well, even learning to go “walk-about” over the fence and trying to set up meet and greets with the neighbors.

4 months in to the experience, coop built, run finished and I make the decision to get even more! (What was I thinking?) I have 4 new babies delivered by USPS on Tuesday. They arrived looking healthy and oh so cute. Kiah was eager to get the box open and see her new charges. From the first batch, being new and all, I didn’t do a lot of socialization with them and this has resulted in semi-flighty birds that don’t really like me. Of course this just breaks my heart since my daughter, after loosing 3 and buying 2, now has chickens that are in love with her 2 year old daughter. (Jealous)

So the plan is to do better. Articles advise handling them and getting them used to humankind. OK, I can do that. I reach in and very gently pick one up. Totally hates the whole idea of being touched, separated from her flock-mates, being sniffed by huge white fluffy things and makes every effort at escape. These chicks are very nervous. When you walk by they run for the corner, bunch up in a little pile and hope not to be noticed. Poor things.

I am aware of the egg industry’s method of keeping chickens under bright lights 24/7 to keep them laying as many eggs as possible during their short lives, and I am aware of the practice of utilizing a heat lamp on chicks to keep their living area at or near 90 degrees for the first weeks. Putting two and two together, I make the decision to turn their light off during the night to give them a little down time and pray that the air conditioned room they are in doesn’t kill them outright. On a whim I also placed a “Toad House” (shaped like a castle) I happened to have in their little fenced area thinking maybe they just wanted a place to hid.

Apparently going to the coop during the dark hours is deeply ingrained in chickens. When I checked on them an hour or so later, every one of the chicks is huddled in the toad house sleeping, not a peep to be heard. This morning, fearing that without the heat lamp I would cause some unknown new chick illness, I plugged the lamp back in and observed my new charges. The change is astonishing. They are all much more calm. They know I’m there and keep an eye on me but do not run in panic to the corner to hide. They are milling about like grand dames at a social, a little drink here a bite of food there. I don’t know enough about chickens to tell you this is normal or that turning off the lamp provided some much needed down time, but I can tell you that they appear much happier (if chickens can be “happier”).