Which To Eat First, The Chicken or the Egg?

On Tuesday, we got a call from the Auburn post office informing us that our baby chicks had arrived. We didn't know exactly when they would be coming, so we had to scramble a bit, but soon enough our ears were picking up the cheeps of little chicks as we brought them to their new home.

We had ordered 15 chicks: 5 buff orpington pullets, 5 gold-laced wyandotte pullets and a mixed group of 5 speckled sussexes. Susseces? The hatchery had sent 2 extra chicks with the 15 ordered to account for loss in transit, and it was a good thing as one chick was dead in the box and another one was so far gone that it had to be euthanized; the rest were happy and healthy, bright eyed chicks. 

We set the chicks up in a large plastic container in the closet under the stairs to protect them from wandering feline and canine mouths. They worship the mystical 250 watt red light bulb in the sky that gives them life sustaining heat of plus or minus exactly 98°F. We started them out with a few sheets of paper towels as bedding with their chick starter feed sprinkled onto it for ease of discovery and even added a bit of sugar to their plus or minus exactly 98°F water to get them off to a good start.

Yesterday, we began omitting the sugar from their water, switched them from paper towel bedding to pine shavings and started feeding them with a chick feeder rather than simply sprinkling their food. We have been adjusting the heat lamp to get the right temperature, but it seems as though the closet they are in is too enclosed and they may require more ventilation; we will likely need to figure out a different enclosure. In the meantime, we get to watch the fuzzy little chicks run around in circles and figure out the world. Next stop, feathers.