Who knew eggs could cause this much stress?!

The oldest text me to say the eggs had arrived today.  I believe my response used the word "CAREFULLY" several times when I told him where to put the boxes.

When I got home there were two boxes waiting for me.  One of them was decorated so cute.

It was like opening a present.

When you want to hatch special eggs

I have promised myself several times that I would not get more birds unless they were purebred birds. I did a little research and thinking and decided that having chicks now, in the winter, would be a good idea because when they are ready to start laying in 6 months, it will be spring. The problem is that our eggs are "barnyard mixes" and local breeders have let their birds all roam together for the winter and so their eggs aren't pure bred either.

Someone recommended that I buy some on Ebay, and that is how I found myself in a bidding war for various chicken eggs tonight. I haven't been on ebay in at least 8 years!

We won 6 (or more) New Hampshire eggs from a German bloodline.  These were two of the pictures that the sellers had posted.

And we won 11 (or more) Silver Laced Wynadotte eggs from the Foley bloodline.  These were the pictures they had posted.

I can only hope that they all arrive in one piece, that I am smart enough to handle them carefully, and that between the broody hen and the incubator that we have a good hatch rate.  If we can get just half of them to survive that would be about 9 chickens, and so maybe 4 hens to add to the flock.  

I'm also planning to pick up some other chicks from a local seller next weekend.  

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Tucking the girls in

One of our youngest girls has decided to go broody.  Every night for almost a week, I have found her in a nest box on the eggs from that day.  I keep taking them from her because we need eggs to eat, but she won't budge.  The last few days there haven't been very many eggs and I'm wondering if she's scared the girls off.

I think this was only confirmed tonight when I found an egg on the ground in the coop.

Clyde's Last Kids

I took these pictures a few days ago but when I looked at them today I realized just how big the babies have gotten.  They're only two months old, and they're just about the same size as Silkie Sue!  The oldest is still hoping that one of these will be a rooster just like Clyde, and I have to say that I'm hoping for the same thing.

Silkie Sue, What Are You Up To?

SilkieSue's youngest babies are getting bigger.  They're no longer tiny puff balls, in fact, as I watched one squeeze out of the chicken run today, I realized they wouldn't be able to fit through very much longer.

We thought these were the last five chicks that would come from Clyde, and we were hoping one would end up being a rooster that looked (and acted) like Clyde.  

But it looks like one of our newer roosters may have gotten to a girl about a month ago....

I hadn't even considered that any of the eggs could have been from one of the other roosters, but there is no way that this white chick came from Clyde.

I also noticed that SilkieSue's back feathers are finally starting to grow back in, over a year after they were broken off by Clyde.

 And then I went back to the coop tonight to count the birds.  I saw SilkieSue sitting up on the roost and I thought this was strange so I looked down in the corner where she's been staying with the babies.

I was missing a chick so I looked back up at SilkieSue.

How the heck did she get that chick up there?!

Chick Freedom

Silkie Sue lead her chicks outside today.  We found them about 100 feet away from the coops.

They're small enough to slip through the fence

Thirsty little boogers

They weren't able to follow Silkie Sue back into the coop because it's too high, so after she went in and they wouldn't follow her, she came back out and nestled down with them in the corner of the chicken run.  We had to spend some time catching them to get them all back into the coop.

And now for a cute video of chicks learning to find bugs....

A little chick clip

Sorry for the choppy video.  I haven't looked at the settings to see how I can fix that issue, but in any case, you can see the cute little chicks eating.

SilkieSue isn't such a bad mom

This second time around, SilkieSue is actually doing very well with the job of mom to her five chicks.

Can you spot three chicks?

Teaching him how to eat

Two chicks

We actually watched her pick up feed from the bowl and then drop it on the ground in front of the chicks.

I thought the eggs were bad....

We came home from a very long day and I told the boys I was going to take a nap.  My last message to the oldest was to feed the goats and to let the adult chickens out to free range.

Within minutes, I was completely passed out on the couch.

The next thing I heard was the oldest bursting through the door screaming "Mom!  Come out here quick!!!!"

I jumped up and it only took me three steps to get through the kitchen towards the door.  I was planning to run outside, in my socks to chase off a fox or save one of my birds when he added "We have chicks!"

Really?!

#1 I thought the eggs all went back since SilkieSue got off the clutch for several hours.

#2 I didn't want any more chicks as they're too much work and I swore that any more birds I got would be pure bred.

#3 I'm sleeping, and we've had chicks before.

I just yelled "Really?!?!" and went back to the couch to sleep.

When I woke up, I took the camera and went out to see what we had...

It is a lot harder to not want them once you've seen them

There were three chicks when he saw them earlier, and now there are four.  There's only one egg left and I didn't hear any peeping and didn't see any pip marks so it may be a bad egg.  I'll check later tonight.

I guess I'll be going out to buy chick starter feed tomorrow.  Sigh.