Chick Update - four weeks old

I meant to take pictures every week and post... but I didn't. I can't even bring myself to apologize, since this blog is supposed to be for fun and I refuse to turn it into a "must do".

Anyway. Today I was sitting on the couch and remembered that I had wanted to blog about the birds, but that would mean getting up off the couch to crutch out to the pen with the camera and then back in... and I felt tired. Then I thought, "I should get Susan to go take the pictures." And what do you know, not five minutes later, Susan came upstairs, and announced that she was going to take pictures of the chicks. That girl's still got her psychic powers.




Nathan and my dad helped me build this moveable range shelter, aka "The Shack". Karianne dubbed it thusly when I was thinking of using corrugated tin for the roof. We changed our minds to polycarbonate, but the name stuck. It's 8 feet long, four feet wide, and two feet tall. Half of it is enclosed with plywood which will soon be covered with polycarbonate sheets to weatherproof it.

You can see the large white meat birds here. They used to look like this four weeks ago.


They enjoy being able to scratch and dig for bugs and worms. Whenever one of them finds a worm, they run away from the others, which of course alerts everyone that someone has a worm, so a general chase ensues. It's pretty funny.

Here's Bokbadok, my namesake. She's nearly fully feathered out now. Kinda cute, huh?



Here's a live-action video that shows how much bigger they are than the golden hens. They're slow and dumb. Dumber even than the hens. And that's saying something.

The Shack gets moved every day, and the birds are always thrilled to get to new ground so they can rip it to shreds. They seem quite happy in their new abode and I am thrilled to have them out of the garage. Four more weeks and the meat birds will be in the freezer. We'll be sure to chronicle butchering day. I'll bet you can't wait!

A neighbor came over and asked if she could borrow some birds for insect control. This is the year of the roly-poly bug. They are literally everywhere. So I sent her off with three of the extra males, since I don't particularly care if I get them back or not. I'm thinking that this bug problem could be a good thing... maybe the neighbors will be GLAD I have bug eaters they can borrow, instead of being annoyed that the bishop's wife is a crazy chicken lady.

It's all about spin.