Rebecca

Our new adventure!

We talk often about getting chickens “one day,” when we are more permanently settled. We’ve come up with our dream chicken coop + run setup, and planned how to let them forage and live happy little chicken lives that give us eggs and compost material.

Friends, I am pleased to share the news that “one day” has arrived; albeit on a smaller scale than we’ve talked about, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

Mr.’s cousin {the cousin-neighbors} has a delightfully varied flock of egg-layers, and her daughter has fallen in love with chickens in general, as well as incubating and hatching eggs. She got us started with our little flock.

**Note: for gallery images, if you click on the individual image it will show full-size + caption**

Pepper is one of our Bantam chicks, that I thought would develop glossy black feathers. I was wrong. As more “grown up” feathers come in, they’re such a lovely tweed-effect, and whiter on the chest. Pepper is my vertically-inclined chick, always trying to get higher up.

Pecan the First {we picked this name over a year ago, and hope to have many Pecans in years to come}, another little Bantam. Pecan is bossy, but also tiny and the one with the loudest PEEP.

Penguin is our giant puffball, and an absolute sweetheart. Potentially a Lavendar Araucana? Penguin has a very different sounding chirp/peep than the others.

A few short weeks later, our flock expanded courtesy of the Library. The manager of the branch I frequent incubates eggs on the circulation desk in the Spring. Come hatching time, they post an “egg-cam” so viewers can watch the eggs hatch. With more chicks than homes for them to go to this year, I accepted the offer of a couple, and my varied barnyard flock reached 5.

Pippin has such a unique coloring, and the best “grumpy chick” expression. I’ve googled chick identification for a potential breed and my best guesses are Mille Fleur d’Uccle or Buff Brahma. I’m very curious how the feathers develop, especially after the unexpected turn Pepper’s took. Pippin is perhaps the most observant chick of the crew, taking note of what everyone else is doing.

And last but not least: Popcorn! I fell in love with this coloring while watching the egg-cam {I saw a black one hatch! I like to think it was Popcorn}, and am delighted to have 2 chicks with feathered legs. My googling suggests Popcorn may be a Black Copper Marans, further rounding out my “every chicken is different” flock. Popcorn is extremely snuggly, and will actively cuddle up against me.

The little cuties have been hanging out in a makeshift brooder box in the living room, thanks to their itty-bitty size and a cold snap. They’re super adorable, and have been surprisingly good house guests, haha. Having them inside also means I’m able to handle them more, and they’re getting used to seeing us walk by and hearing us. When we’re both in the office and haven’t gone through to the kitchen in a while, they will start peeping loudly until I go see what’s happening: they miss us! {I figured this out after a morning of the loud peeping, followed by a quiet afternoon while I sat on the couch and crocheted}. They also tend to curl up in the corner closest to the couch when we settle in for the evening, as if they’re watching tv too.

Team Tiny versus Team Puffball?
Snack time: always
The size difference!
Pecan is definitely up to something
Pepper knows how to strike a pose
Learning to walk up sticks
Soaking up afternoon sun and stick practice

When chicks are so small, it’s almost impossible to fully sex them, so there’s no way of really knowing what I’ve ended up with, although I’ve been researching “at home” methods. There are several different feather-based ways to guess at sex, and while I missed the window for wing-feather sexing, if we go by the tail-feather one {tail feathers by 1 week old = hens; no tail feathers by 1 week old = roosters} I may have lucked out with 4 hens and 1 rooster. A very, very snuggly rooster at that {I think it’s Popcorn}. Fingers crossed! I’ve gotten attached, and if I have to pick between roosters to keep … that’ll be a hard choice.

I haven’t had chickens in 25 years probably? So this has been a relearning experience, ha. It has been amazing to watch how fast they grow and their feathers come in – especially with the little Bantams! It won’t be long before they get to move outside, first in their coop under the carport and then out into the yard {with a solar fence to keep them contained and safe}. I look forward to our futures adventures together, and will be sure to share all the fun chicken content!

Have you had chickens? If so, what’s your best “chicken parent” advice?

Which chick and/or name is your favorite? Do you have any guesses on how these grown-up feathers will come in?

23 comments

    • These are already a lot more fun than the ones I had forever-and-ages ago! 🙂 lol … They’ve got such great little personalities. Starting small since I’ll be the one doing all the chicken tending 😉 but definitely looking forward to my own eggs for baking and omelets!

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  8. Ahhh! I can’t with how cute these guys are. My youngest son would be all about this. They are adorable. They are all so cute, but Popcorn is just adorable. Good luck with this new adventure!

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    • If y’all lived closer, I’d totally enlist his help to socialize/give them all the cuddles! 🙂 Popcorn is stinkin’ cute, for sure!

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  9. As I said on Instagram these are absolutely adorable so I had to check out the full post about them 😍😍 I love the names you’ve picked, especially that you’ve gone for ‘the first’ in the hopes of many more Pecans to come. Penguin is such a sweet name too and I just adore how fluffy she is. How sweet is Pippin’s differently coloured head? And I love that Popcorn cuddles you and has a differently coloured chest. They’re all so sweet 🥰🥰 omg how sweet that they cry out when they miss you too. That’s so adorable.

    I’ve seen a lot of chicks, ducklings and goslings this week as I visited a farm. I also feed some baby goats and calfs and saw the most adorable piglets that weren’t even a week old yet. Needless to say I had a lot of aww moments 😂

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    • I fell in love with Pippin’s color combination, and can’t wait to see more of the grown-up feathers come in! Surprisingly, that grey fluff on the wings is coming in almost khaki-colored, so this could be interesting indeed! And Penguin is totally still fluffy, even with big feathers coming in. 😀
      Oh man, that farm visit sounds so awesome! 😀 Love baby animals, they’re just the cutest ❤

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      • Ooh well I look forward to seeing what they look like when they’ve all got their grown up feathers. Sounds like it could be an interesting experience.
        It was lovely. I went with my niece as Springs such a good time for seeing all the young animals. I easily could have come home with a rabbit tbh. They were just so sweet 😍

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