Here a Cheep

There a cheep. Everywhere a cheep cheep.
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That's what's going on at our house these days. Chickens are hatching like popcorn kernels.
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We decided to give chicken farming another try. Our first go around was an amazing experience that I am grateful for but the end result was a little distressing. Picking up chicken feathers scattered throughout our yard is not how we wanted to end our brief journey with chickens.
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So now that we can actually keep our chickens and raise them to adulthood we've given it another shot. But this time hasn't been a walk in the park either. The morning after we put our 20 eggs in the incubator for their 21 day incubation period, Colton came in and woke me up saying "one of our eggs is cracking!". He was thinking that a miracle super chick was about to emerge after just a single night of cooking. Well the egg was cooked all right. The little man in the house had pulled a chair up to the incubator, which I thought was out of his reach, (yea I know, nothing is out of Fletcher's reach) and decided to play with the temperature knob. When I went to see this super chick what I saw was a bunch of boiling eggs. The temperature had maxed out at 120 degrees when it is supposed to remain at a constant 99.5 degrees and the eggs were beginning to crack and ooze. Okay, we're not off to a great start so far.
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A few days later we visited a local chicken farm, and a sweet chicken lady sent me home with a fresh batch of eggs to stick in the incubator and told me to toss out the cooked ones as they'd never hatch. I decided to wish for good luck and keep those old eggs in the incubator along with the new fellas just in case. Well, before we knew it we began to hear cheeps coming from the incubator. And on the morning of our homeschool Valentine's day party 3 beautiful chicks came into the world, one with crooked toes and all. No, it's not normal for chicks to have crooked toes but remember, these chicks were partially baked at one point. But it's fitting that crooked toes just happens to be Fletcher's chick which he so lovingly named Zorro. Zorro's alive and well and that's all that matters! We love him just the way he is even if he does walk a little funny!
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While waiting for our other batch to hatch we came home with four new feathered friends after visiting the feed store. We just couldn't resist these fluffy cuties. And before we knew it our new batch was hatching so we have joyful peeps filling up our home these days.
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And here the pictures to go with the story.
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{zorro, just minutes old}


{gracie's barred rock baby named cleopatra}


{an australorp we bought at the feed store}



{the night we first heard the peeps coming from the eggs, fletch was all giggles and said "mom, this is going to be awesome!!!}











{colton's lacy, a silver laced wyandotte}


{fletch calls this one cheep cheep. she is a buff cochin}



{maggie's rhode island red named henrietta. she's a real sweetie!}



{zorro does look a little half baked doesn't he? poor guy!}





{here are our newest hatchlings that arrived february 19th}




{just hatched. not so cute yet, huh?}


{so excited to have another plymouth barred rock. these chicks have always been one of my favorites!!!}