I had taken the notion that we would not ever have baby chicks. In my reading, I decided that they were high maintenance, and delicate, and a lot of them do not survive chick-hood. I know myself. If I lost a baby chick, it would be a very sad day around the ranch. In order to avoid that heartache, I just decided we would start with young already established chickens when we decided to expand our flock.

As usual, God had other plans for us.

One of our neighbors bought 25 chickens. Then those chickens laid eggs. He thought he would try to incubate some and see if they hatched. They did. All of them. He said he had baby chicks running everywhere and asked if we wanted some. I was not present for this conversation or would have said, “No, thank you.” But Josh said, “Sure! Why not!” We were going to raise some baby chicks after all. We knew we were going to be heading to Dallas for Josh’s doctor’s appointments soon so Josh told him we would come get them in a week or so. A couple days later, Omar pulled up with a box and said, “come pick out your chickens!”

So began my crash course in chick raising. Google told me I need to keep them warm. We had a heat lamp from the freeze. Not ideal, but we were in a hurry. Google told me we needed a cage to contain them. We had some chicken wire that Josh constructed into a small cage. It was too cold for them to go outside so… in the living room they went. This still didn’t solve the problem of us going out of town overnight in the next few days. Enter, Google Home Hub.

We felt better about taking a quick overnight away while making sure our house wasn’t burning to the ground due to the ultra-controversial heat lamp. They grew so quickly! We soon had to upgrade their cage to the medium dog kennel.

I’ll say it again, they grew so fast. It seemed like one minute they were teeny fragile babies, and the next thing we knew, it was time to move them outside. Google told us that as soon as they have mostly feathers, and not so much down, that they could move outside as long as it was over 70 degrees. The time had come. I was going to miss their little cheeps and chirps but they were really starting to stink up the place! They stayed in their little cage, next to the coop for about a week. Then, we put them in a dog kennel, inside the coop for a few days. Then, we just opened the doors and let everyone get to know each other. It’s been about a month now, and a few of the big chicks (ahem, Vern and Shirley) still pick on the babies but the rest of the ladies just let them be.

Lesson learned for next time… when they are small, give them little leg bracelets with numbers. When they get big, they all look the same! So we have Vern, Shirley, Thelma, Louise, Maude, and… the babies 😁