All about chicks

For all you that want pics of the boys, sorry! We have some new babies at our house. On the 6th we bought 8 chicks, 4 pair of different breeds. In the past I'd been opposed to chickens and I actually was not looking forward to the chick stage but it turns out I love 'em!

They are more charming than I had thought, and they do live IN our ping pong room at the moment (working on getting them to a more natural environment).  This cardboard box is their second home.  It now also has an addition, pictured below, for more space.

 In this one you can see two pale yellow chicks, we added them to the flock after losing one (I cried - I'm such a pushover for animals). So to date we have 2 two week old chicks, 5 three week olds, and 2 four week olds. They are getting along well and grow incredibly fast.

This is their addition - I wanted them to see some natural light and have more room. Today I did begin a makeshift coop for under our deck which we'll slowly acclimate them to until they are more fully feathered out and can move to the red "chicken church" that our neighbor acquired for us. It's great, used, but we'll throw a little paint on the roof and it will make a great home. I'll post pics of it next month.

Some think these little ones can be outside now (with a heat lamp) and they may be right but I don't want to lose sleep over wondering if they're cold so I will start moving them outside on the days when we get warmer, sunny weather. So what if our ping pong room smells like IFA? Ok, I do care and that's why I am working on the next space! Ultimately they'll live on a portion of the extra lot with their equine friends. It will be a colorful flock of white, black, rusty red, buff, and more. Two of them will lay (hoping they're all hens) pale blue or pale green eggs, many will lay brown eggs, and two will be white.

This one's my favorite, a Buff Orpington. She's mellow and friendly. When she gets all her feathers in she'll be much fluffier. We may name them so we don't have to say "that dark brown one". So far I like Star Wars names; Bennett calls the largest black one Darth Vader.

Speaking of movie characters, this is Bennett dressed up as Luke Skywalker. He is totally into making up costumes lately. When I woke up today he had a full superman costume UNDERNEATH his church clothes (tie and shoes included) so he could look like Clark Kent.

Tonight Paxton is sleeping on his NEW bed...at least the mattress anyway. His frame, headboard etc is coming from Grandpa's wood shop next week. Due to his crazy sleeping positions, I am certain Paxton will be falling off as his new bed won't have sides like his old fire truck toddler one did. So we're having him try it out with just the mattress on the floor so if he rolls off we won't hear it : )