We got our first 5 chicks from answering a local Craigslist ad. The chicks are half Silkie and half Silver Spangled hamburg. They are really pretty birds. Bantams, so they are small. Because Silkies are are very hard to sex, we had no idea what sex we were getting. We ended up with three roos and two hens.
This was them on the way home from getting them. All I had was a little box with a towel in it. Heat was on in the car and the box sat on my lap. I always run hot. I think they were like a week old or so at this point.
Our ghetto brooder box. I didn't see the point of buying a expensive box that the chicks would only be spending a short time in. I did upgrade to a larger bin later when the chicks got bigger. I will use that bigger bin from now on. The bin worked wonderful. Only problem I had was when they started to climb and test their wings. I put a wire bin on top of this bin and then used a baby gate on top of the larger bin. Worked very well, until one little accident involving the chick brooder, Abby and a window. You will see all that in another post.
One of the littles as I called them. This one is the smallest (and still is) so we named her Little, as in Chicken Little.
A little baby roo. Not sure who this one turned into though. Hard to tell before all their grown up feathers come in. Our alpha roo, Harry (named after my dad who passed away a little over a year ago), is covered mostly white feathers now.
At this point, they are all outside. Taking a nice dirt bath here. You can see the Silver Spangled feather coloring good here.
Our two hens and one of the roos. You can see the Silkie poof on the hens. Because they are a cross, their poofs didn't get as big as a full Silkie.
More dirt baths. At this point they are fully feathered out and full grown. Harry our alpha roo is in the front.
Woot! Laying for the first time! Notice our ghetto bucket nesting box. Works really great for the little hens. Hoping they will work well for our newer bigger girls.
We ended up re-homing one of our roos. Having three was a bit much. They two we have left are great.
We, as in me, named this bath of chickens, Harry, Chickaletta (the other roo named after the chicken on PAW Patrol), Little and Henny Penny.
All the chickens follow me around everywhere! I was trying to get into my car and the four amigos (as we started to call the first bunch we got) decided they wanted to come to the store too. Sorry guys, I'm not one of those crazy chicken ladies who push their chickens in a stroller. Not yet anyway. You can see two of the second bunch of girls we got in the picture too.
