Week 2 - Hey Mom, can we go out and pick up chicks?

We are starting week two of the Great Bos Chicken Experiment….so far so good. My favorite line of the week came from Nick who innocently one evening, "Hey Mom, can we go out and pick up chicks?" He looked at me very strangely when I couldn't stop laughing!

All our chicks are doing well. Even though we ordered 20, Farmer George likes to throw in some extras because it is not unusual to have a few not take the US Postal Service delivery system too well and go on to the big coop in the sky. We must have gotten lucky as all have made it and so we actually have 26 chickens.

We have only had one small incident so far – a broken leg. I took the broken leg one to Mr. Ed (known as the Chicken-Whisperer in my new found chicken circles). He looked her over and said she was otherwise healthy. He taught me how to look at her ears and eyes and “bandaged” her up with that Nu-skin band-aid stuff you can get from CVS. Seems to have done the trick!

These first few weeks we are keeping them in a baby pool in the garage so that we can have a special heat lamp on them day and night to keep them warm (think red light bulb in hotel bathrooms). It has been in the 30’s and 40’s at night the last few nights so we have also thrown a tarp over the pool to keep some more heat in. They are growing and growing by the day so last night I just caged them in a bit more with a make-shift fence of chicken wire around the outside of the pool.

Oone of the most common questions I am getting is how the kids are handling all of this. What is there not to love at this stage? They are cute, fuzzy and fun to hold. Olivia is the one most in love with them still. She has blown them kisses goodnight and loves to take all our visitors out to see them. She was also trying to come up with names for them so in an effort to remind her what they are for I made some suggestions - Nugget, BBQ, Dinner, Drumstick. For most of this past week, all three kids insisted that we eat all our meals were in the garage with the chicks. I ended up setting up chairs and tablecloths so that we were more comfortable.

When it comes to the big b-day (butchering not birthday!) in July, I will probably just have Mark take the three kids to my parents for the day. I think Mark and I are going to have a hard enough time handling it so it’s not something I want the three kiddos involved in. I think it will help too that we have so many. I have heard that when you only get a few the kids really can name them because it is easier to tell them apart. I will keep you in the loop with how that really works out in reality!