Baby chicken update – 8 weeks old, getting so big

Our baby chickens don’t feel so much like babies anymore. They will be eight weeks old tomorrow. They are such a joy, we are definitely attached.

We took the baby chickens outside EVERY night this last week and they ran around the yard, in the sun. We put our big chickens in the coop during this time, to avoid any confrontations – the baby chicks are still too little (I think) to be around the big girls. I think having small kids makes the chickens even more entertaining – my kids love them. The Barred Rock chickens (the black/white checkered ones) seem to be the most kid-friendly and docile of the bunch. My daughter pets one of them in the picture above.

Whereas, Dora the Leghorn takes off as my daughter tries to pet her. Check out the tail feathers on Dora. . . they stick straight up! I’m not sure if that’s a feature of the breed or if she’s a rooster? We have no clue.

All the chickens seem to get along. The Rhode Island Red (in the middle pictured above) is by far the dominant one of the group. Her and Dora, the Leghorn, seem to be in charge.

And Apple, our  Rhode Island Red, we still don’t know if she is actually a he. It’s very possible that we have a rooster on our hands. Check out her stance and her huge comb and wattle. She’s a beautiful bird and I’ll be super sad if she’s a rooster and we have to find her a new home. I guess around 8-10 weeks roosters start trying to crow, so that’s what we’re listening for.

Ahh Cleo. She’s the beauty queen of the bunch. Her eyeliner was much more prominent when she was one week old. My son had originally named her Chima (after his LEGO sets) but we decided her eyes looked so much like Cleopatra that we should name her Cleo. She’s an Ameraucana chicken. which means she should lay blue or green eggs!

Here is one of our Barred Rock, also called a Plymouth Rock, ruffling her feathers. While Cleo and Dora gossip over in the corner. Maybe they are talking about the Barred Rock and it ruffled her feathers? LOL. Hard to say, but she was all ruffled up. We still haven’t named our Barred Rocks, we need to but we are waiting for more personality to come through.

Remember I told you I had baby strawberries growing? Well apparently the baby chickens read my blog, because they went straight for them!

Transition to outside coop. We are approaching the time when I think they can be added to the current flock (around 10 weeks?), so we are debating how we will do this. If you put them in when they are too young, they can be attacked and beat up by the big hens. And you want to introduce them in a way that makes them all want to be a happy family. Anyone have advice for introducing baby chickens to a mature and existing flock? 

The sad news is that we will probably need to find homes for at least two or three of our chickens. We never intended on buying six baby chicks – but that was the minimum requirement at the store. Our big coop can probably hold about 8 to 9 comfortably – so we will have to make some tough choices in the next few weeks about which birds stay and which birds find new, loving homes (no, we won’t eat them). If any of the chicks turn out to be a rooster, the decision will be much easier to make, as I don’t think our neighbors would appreciate crowing first thing in the morning. We may get rid of two of the older birds, so we can keep more babies. We aren’t sure. Time will tell.

Checking the coop for eggs is still a daily EVENT in our house. The kids love seeing how many eggs are in the coop each afternoon. They carry them in – while I hold my breath – and they put them right into the fridge. We lose a couple eggs each week due to clumsy fingers or tripping on the way into the house, but over time they’ll be pros at it. Besides it gives them so much joy to help with the chickens that I think a broken egg or two is well worth the smiles for every egg they do get into the carton successfully.

We use these Rachael Ray Stoneware 12-Cup Sittin’ Pretty Egg Tray to store the eggs in the fridge. We have a white one and a red one and we rotate them, so we always know which eggs are the freshest. They are easy for the kids to put the eggs in.

The end. Ha! I love this photo of the baby chicks lined up and searching for grubs and grass. It’s like a group of old woman, walking along in the sunshine, gossiping and snacking as they go. Looks like we are missing an Ameraucana in the photo – I’ve decided it’s physically impossible to photograph ALL six chickens at once.

You can see our baby chicks when they were only one week old here and then again at four weeks here.

Question for you chicken pros – The garage is starting to smell. The chickens are stored in a big galvanized tub and we are changing the shavings almost daily. We can change the shavings at night and by morning the entire garage smells. Is it just because our chickens are bigger now and there is more poop? We can’t figure it out – we’ve cleaned the galvanized tub inside and out – but 12-14 hours after the chicks have been in it, it’s stinky again.

Do you have baby chicks this spring? How are they doing? 

If you’re planning on bringing home baby chickens, here is a Baby Chicken Checklist!