Winter Update

It has been some time since my last update, mainly because every ounce of my spare time is either spent reading the Hunger Game series or discovering the joys (and pains!) of Zumba at my new gym, but a lot has happened here at 15023 SE Stark street!  But because this isn't a Christmas card, I'll keep it focused and simple.  

All six little mamas are growing more every day.  In this stage, they look like the token pre-teens; half downy, half feathery, loud, clumsy, and testing their boundaries... And they are finally all named too: Silkie, Souffle, Lyla, Abernathy, Marley, and Angelica.  Besides enjoying pecking at vegetable-scrap concoctions and basking in the heat lamp, the chicks have begun practicing roosting.  When chickens rest or sleep, they congregate onto a perch to keep warm in a feathery mound.  Right now, one or two chicks will hop up onto a strategically placed branch and awkwardly balance for a minute or two before hopping off.  We also added "grit" to their pine-shaving bedding.  Because chickens don't have teeth, they have a hard time digesting food.  Therefore, with their everyday diet of grass, insects, and other plants, they pick up bits of gravel that acts as a churner in their stomachs.  When raising chicks in the winter indoors though, you must provide tiny stones in their food and bedding to supplement what they would be pecking at outside.  

Usually, the first question that people ask is: What do your dogs think about the chickens??  Tasty?  Bizarre?  Entertaining?  The answer is that they are mostly just curious.  The constant peeping and flapping of wings keeps the dogs wondering what the hell these little creatures are!  Both pups have been able to socialize face-to-face with the braver chicks of the pack.  Our sweet deaf Pitbull even allowed Marley to walk all over Soma's body as she just laid there lifeless.  

The time will soon come that the ladies will get to venture outdoors and explore their new territory.  The sun has to show its' face first though!  Until chicks are fully feathered or around 4 months old, indoors it is!  And no... they don't smell  ;-)