53,52,51,50,49

Neighborhood Jersey Cows line up to watch me run. 

 Our Chicks arrived early on Wednesday morning. I got the call at 6:30 AM. I loved heading to the post office and hearing my package before they even got to the door. We tend to wait until something needs done before actually doing it. If nothing else, I have learned to make sure that everything works before you really need it.
I got home and opened my package of 50 chicks and 1 rooster. The rooster was easily spotted because he has a distinct color from the rest. Sadly, there were 3 dead ones on the bottom of the crate. Thankfully they added a few extras so we had 50 total.

The cows love to run with me! 

We put the chicks in an empty calf dome, only to discover that the heat lamp I purchased that morning didn't work. I drove back to the store exchanged it for one that I made sure worked and all was good. Or so I though, the water-er mysteriously had a crack in the bottom and couldn't hold water. The chicken nipples I had ordered online hadn't shown up yet.  Back to the farm store I went.  We decided it was too big of a space and temporarily moved them to an old watering trough in the garage. Thus, the said new waterer was too large for that space. Sean has some smaller water-ers that adapt to a Mason Jar, so we used that instead. Those cute little fluffy chicks STINK! Plus, thanks to some wonderful advice we have been diligently cleaning their behinds and keeping them from getting septic. Taylor is Ah-Mazing! She has become such a hard diligent worker, I know I can trust her to do what needs done. She was up at 5:30 Saturday morning to take care of all her farm chores before heading out for a very long day (that's another post).
I went out to check on the chickens because there was one that wasn't looking so good and I bumped the heat lamp, it fell and landed on one of the baby chicks. Now we have one fried chicken.
Pretty sure that there is a better way to dispose of them, but they ended up as coyote food in the woods.

The cat isn't dead, but other things around here are! 

It is hilarious to watch these tiny creatures act just like the mature hens. They scratch, peck, roost, and my favorite is when they all take off running, like there is a sale on shoes at Nordstrom's to some unknown destination at the other end of the trough.  

Taylor discovered one of our mature hens dead in the nesting box yesterday. Hopefully this is not a trend and our numbers will hold steady. The layers are now about 2 years old and our egg production has been slowly dwindling. As soon as these new chicks start laying we will have our self another great home education lesson, how to butcher a chicken. That, or I might try to sell them as a pet.