Baby Chicks At 24 Days Old!

You Lookin' At Me?

The chicks are growing so fast!  Every couple days it seems that they have just exploded another inch.  They are coming into the stage when their feathers are growing in, and they look rather ragged and prickly as their fuzzy down gives way to feathers.  This chick is one of the more advanced ones with her pretty red colors beginning to show.

Babies at the big girl feeder!

Here are a couple others where you can see the different stages of

Baby Chicks At Two Weeks Old!

Growing fast they are!  Red Star babies are doing well, and sprouting their wings as we speak.  Here is the latest video I took today.

The chicken coop has been cleaned and prepared for the babies.  The three-year old hens have been moved over to the back side of the coop, and Bill and Jim put up a barrier on the bottom of the chicken wire divider wall to make certain the babies can't get stuck in the fencing.  All that is left to do is move the heat lamp out there, they will have much more room to flutter and practice their flying skills.  We will wait as long as possible before moving them.  I feel better as long as I can check up on them as often as I like while they're in the house.  But, they are starting to manufacture a whole bunch of feather dander already!  So, it won't be long now.

Tree Down, Fence Down!

As I was leisurely looking out the back window this morning, my eyes fell on something unfamiliar looking.  Upon further examination, we discovered that one of our pine trees had given up a few of its branches, right on top of our fence!

Right onto the fence!

The guys, Bill and my brother-in-law, Jim, got right to getting it all cleaned up.

Formulating a plan!

Raising Baby Chicks - Part 2

Here's a short video I took of the baby chickens when they were six days old.  They are growing their tiny wings so quickly.  I can see a difference every day.  They sometimes get on top of the feeder and take a running leap whilst flapping away.  If they keep this up, they'll be flying out of the brooder in no time.

Things are going along rather smoothly these last couple of days.  I feed and water them daily, and check on them about every two hours.  I figure if the red heat lamp burns out, two hours is probably the max for them to not be too severely harmed from the cold.  They are being kept inside the house in a separate quiet room.  The house is heated to 68 degrees during the day, and 64 degrees at night.   The heat lamp is keeping them at slightly higher than 95 degrees directly under the light, and the coolest spot in the brooder is around 86 degrees.  They have the option to hang out wherever they are most comfortable.  

Here's a photo I just took today, just four days after the video above.  Just look at