Baby Chicks!!!

Hi, friends!

Today’s the day! After weeks of searching, we finally found some baby chicks to add to our little suburban farm!

It seems with egg prices so high and supply chains a mess, a lot of people are getting chickens these days, which has made it really hard to get chicks this year. I’ve been stalking four different feed stores in my area for several weeks, but they’ve been selling out so fast I haven’t been able to get any. This week, I decided that no matter what, I was getting some chicks! So I was at the feed store an hour early and waited with my wiley toddler. Was it a fun time? No. Was it worth it? Heck yeah! (Also please pray for me because I have to do the whole thing over again tomorrow to get the last breed I’m after…)

I grew up raising chickens and it was such a fun part of my childhood. I think we had 40 or 50 at one point. I remember driving to the livestock auction every Wednesday morning in the summers with my gram to bid on chicks (and ducks, and goats, and all the other random critters we collected over the years.) It was such an adventure and I look back on it now with such fondness and nostalgia.

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to give my own kids the experience of raising animals and now that we’re settled in our house and have the space, the time is here!

Since we live in the suburbs, we can only have up to five hens and no roosters. We also don’t have a ton of space for a coop, so I decided 3-4 hens would be plenty. And because hens do their best laying in the first couple of years, we decided raising them from chicks would be better than buying full grown/older chickens. (Also, hand raising babies creates such a special bond! My favorite chickens growing up were all hand raised.)

The chicks we got today are Speckled Sussex and Gold Sex Link (which is basically a cross-breed with a mix of buff and white feathers.) So far, the Speckled Sussex is much more timid and needy than the Sex Link, but we’ll see how their personalities change as they grow!

At the top of my list tomorrow is a Buff Orpington and either a Barred Rock or Calico Princess (another cross-breed.) Fingers crossed I can get out the door in time to snag em!

That’s all for today, friends. Stay tuned for more chicken content to come in the future. I am officially a chicken lady now 😄.