CHICKENS!!!!

Back on July 26th I received 10 completely adorable day old chicks. For those of you that don't know - you can buy baby chicks online! I bought mine from "My Pet Chicken". We have had so much fun with them so far and they really make all of us smile everyday! They are now almost 5 months old and we still have all 10 of them. Here are some pictures of them:

Although I take care of most of the day-to-day care taking, the kids all do help at some point during the week. NO, they have not started laying eggs yet but we are anxiously awaiting the day we get our first egg. We have built a small coop for them but we have decided that it is becoming too small for them so we are in the process of building them a larger coop.

My greatest accomplishment to date has been clipping their wings. I don't know if words can explain how very nerve-wracking that first cut with the scissors was. I was so afraid that I was going to hurt them. Come to find out, it doesn't hurt them at all and it also isn't very time consuming. Raileigh and I managed to clip all 10 of their wings in less than 1/2 hour. I was apprehensive on whether or not I wanted to do it. I don't like "messing" with nature but in the end decided it was what was best for them.

Why did we have to clip their wings? They LOVED to come up onto our deck and back porch to hang out closer to us. It was fine for awhile and quite amusing but after awhile, I started getting a little tired of the poop and of having to constantly remove them. Here is a pic of them on the deck and the porch:

There are pretty easy to take care of and fairly inexpensive. I buy their food in 50 pound bags and it costs me about $12 per bag. The bag will last me about 1 or 2 months. Due to the fact that I live in Upstate NY we had to upgrade on some of the products that we bought for them. For instance, I bought a water heater because their water was constantly freezing.

I'm already excited about the possibility of adding to the brood!