Raising and caring for baby chickens has been pretty easy and fun so far. They are six days old but we have only had them for 4 days, and they have changed so much in that time. The chicks aren’t just cute fluffy puff balls anymore. They are starting to get actual feathers on their wings and their cute little fuzzy butts are turning into funny shaped sparsely feathered ones. But they are still cute.
We ran into one issue so far, pasty butt. Sorry no pictures of that. But as you can imagine it doesn’t look good and can’t feel good to them. The issue with pasty butt is that it can block their vent and cause illness or death, due to them backing up. So a little warm water and issue fixed. Curiously the only ones that had it were the plymouth rock chicks. It can be caused from being stressed or over heating. I adjusted the heat lamp and hope that was all they needed. Other than that they have been pretty easy to care for.
We are trying to make sure we visit them a lot. I wouldn’t mind them being inside so we could socialize them more but our dog Jake is way to curious and would whine the entire time he stared at them. So for now they are in the garage. We plan on having the kids help a lot with the birds and collecting eggs so I want to make sure they are use to us touching them and use to little hands. The two year old, Big D, loves them. My one year old, Little K, is excited about them but doesn’t want to touch them, which is a good thing for now, she is a bit heavy handed and I don’t think it will end well for the birds if she is given free time with them.
This weekend our nearby Coastal Farm & Ranch store is having a sale on chicks so we might have a few more to add to the bunch.
From Housewife to Hunter . Adding A Rifle To My Apron 