Day 2

I've always loved waking up in the morning to birds singing. I was amused to wake up this morning to chicks cheeping inside the house. It was a wonderful wake-up call! I will say: I still don't think I'm attached to them, but I am getting attached to having them. ;)

Last night, David was a little unsure of the way we had the heat-lamp set up, so he made a modification. He placed a huge c-clamp on the top of the shelves by the brooder, and hung the lamp from that. This will reduce the heat absorbed by the wooden shelving unit, and also make it a little easier to adjust the height of the lamp. It will also cancel out the frustration of the rubber clamp-covers sliding slightly on the wood. We'll see how well this idea works.

The kids have been holding the chicks at various times throughout the day, and have (mostly) been diligent about washing their hands afterward. I've never been very pressed about those waterless hand-sanitizers, but I think I may buy some to keep by the brooding box; it makes more sense than washing hands thirty or forty times a day (or more!), especially when you consider that it's five or six people, each washing their hands that many times a day!

I've continued to check on the chicks throughout the day, and they seem to doing wonderfully. I slid a wooden dowel through holes on the ends of the boxes, to provide a slightly raised place for them to roost, if they choose; I also placed a couple of pieces of scrap wood in the box for the same purpose.

I took one of the kids to the library, and decided to step in and see what books I could find on caring for chickens. I was amazed to discover they have preciselyone book on raising chickens. One. There were at least 15 on raising horses, several on pigs, numerous books on rabbits, but only one about chickens.

I thought about setting up a system to weigh the chicks regularly to track their growth; however, without a way to 'tag' them without any harm, I don't know of any way to distinguish between them all, which would negate any way of truly tracking progress. Edit: After a quick search, I found the following link: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080508205247AAc6DJM  I think this means another trip to the store! :)

Later edit: I went back to the store, only to find that they do not carry these tags. They might be able to order them, but I'll have to check the catalog first. If not, there are other farm stores around where I can check.

Since I have now spent two hours working on creating this blog (the original blog was on a server that apparently doesn't allow comments from users -- ??), it's time for bed. More updates tomorrow. Thanks for reading!