2nd Annual Bath Tub Chick Days!

 Yep you heard me, I've once again got chicks in the bath tub. After a predator got my three fancy silky trio (two hens and a rooster) I was very very upset and in my upset ness I ordered 35 Silky chicks off the internet. The internet can be very dangerous that way so watch out. Twenty-five is typically the minimum order so I may have gotten carried away by ordering 35 chicks.

They even arrived a day early. Bonnie the cat is most disgusted with newest arrivals. Typically it means I sit in the recliner less so she the Queen of Lap Cats doesn't have a warm lap.  Oh well, I am getting the chicks settled in. It has been a bit more difficult finding a sutible brooder box for them to live in (in the bathtub). This is a good thing as it means we have gone through and gotten rid of most of the large boxes we moved in with.  (YAY) So I had to use a empty clear plastic tote, just means more cleaning and no more switching to a clean cardboard box. I sure get better pictures without the extra brown/yellow reflection from the cardboard. 

Cute and Fluffy

I do believe that raising chicks in the fall will be a Wienhold tradition. Someday perhaps they won't all end up in the bath tub but knowing me a few always will. Fall chicks do have their place. As my hens started last fall grew up all winter and started laying eggs right away in the spring. Spring is an excellent time for the hens to be starting to lay. But if you get chicks in the spring then they do all their growing in the summer and don't start laying until fall. Fall typically is when the chicken slows down egg production (decreasing in daylight). My hens have been laying eggs steady all summer and are now slowing down, meaning I get fewer eggs now then in July when I got a record of 26 eggs in one day. Now I get about 15 a day.

Before I lost my fancy Silkies and made a internet order for chicks, I was planning on borrowing an incubator from my neighbor to try and hatch out my own chicken eggs. Save me some money and get more hens for the summer and roosters for the freezer. So I did, I gathered a couple days worth of eggs layed by my hens, that are hopefully fertilized by one of the two roosters. And put them in the incubator on Saturday September 15th. It should take aprox 21 days for the eggs to hatch. Out of the 37 eggs I put in the incubator I am hoping a couple hatch out, any more will be a bonus.