Friday, April 08, 2005

Peep show

It's our lucky day--the feed store had Araucanas today. These are the chickens that lay blue and green eggs. Their feather colors vary slightly, although they are mostly brown and black, and apparently each hen lays a specific color egg--in other words, one might lay pale green eggs and another might lay blue eggs.

These chicks are only 2 days old, as opposed to Abigail and Eleanor, who are about 10 days old. What a difference. The babies drop off to sleep with no warning at all, just falling to the ground, all sprawled out with complete abandon, and then wake up 3 seconds later, ready to eat. Sound familiar?

So far the older ones seem to be getting along with the younger ones. I'm glad we were able to get them so soon, so that they're fairly close in age. You're supposed to start day-old chicks under the heat lamp at 95 degrees and lower the temp (by raising the lamp) 5 degrees per week. So if they were very far apart in age, that would get awfully complicated.