Chick update

We had another 5 chicks hatch on Monday, bringing the total to 11. Unfortunately, we had one not make it, which is sad but also something you have to expect.

As for bedding in the brooder, I had a lot of conflicting information. One book said newspaper for the first few days. Another book said to never use newspaper because it is too slippery and causes splayed legs. That book suggested wire. Another book said never use wire and offered a number of suggesting, saying they used fine pine shavings (Never cedar shavings since they can be poisonous). Of course one of the other books said to never use shavings because the chicks can eat it and get stopped up. All very confusing.


Since I am a pessimist, I didn't think the eggs would hatch. It seemed to me she wasn't moving them around very much. I also didn't want to believe anything would be as simple as grabbing eggs, shoving them under a broody hen, and waiting 21 days. I was therefore unprepared when Krystal went out and checked on the hen on Sunday and yelled across the yard, "We have chicks!" I first filled the brooder box with wheat straw since that is what I had on hand. It was not a good choice, but I didn't have many other alternatives. The only wood shavings we had were dumped into the big brooder box once I moved the sick chicken into it (more on the sick chicken tomorrow), so it wouldn't really be a good idea to scrape 'em back out of there to use for the chicks. The Sunday bunch seemed to move about fine in the straw, but there were two from Monday that were too weak to stand up very well. One actually kept flipping over on its back and having trouble getting back upright. So the straw had to go.

We had some newspapers that we got from Krystal's grandmother to cover the table while I was lettering the egg sign.

We still had a bit left over, so I layered the bottom of the box a couple sheets thick of newspaper and covered that with two layers of paper towel. The newspaper is to absorb the mess, the paper towel is to give them traction. I just add paper towels once the ones in the brooder get too messy.

I plan to switch to shavings in a couple days, or maybe I will just chop the straw up and save myself a trip out. I am going to switch because they seem pretty bored on the paper towel. The can't scratch in it, and they ones that could handle it seemed to have more fun climbing over and in the straw. Also with the paper towels the droppings show up so I have a problem with the chicks pecking at them. I assume one of the chickens that had trouble walking is the one that passed away. The other, the one that kept flipping over, is getting around much better now that it has the stable surface of the papertowels as support. Once that chick is up and running around I will switch out the newspaper and papertowels for something more interesting.

Now to change the subject, and to show that Krystal isn't the only one that knows how to cook from scratch, here is what I had for lunch today:

Pepperoni and Mushroom pizza on homemade dough

We also finished off the batch of pita she made on Sunday so I made another batch so we could have our last bit of greek leftovers tonight.


Making pita is definitely a PiTA, but hummus and pita chips are such an awesome solution to the 3pm blahs that I put myself through it. I will most likely have to make another batch tomorrow since we ate half of today's batch for dinner.

-Matthew