Saturday, April 21, 2012

My Little Chickadees

Becca and I had planned on getting some Rhode Island Red chicks for her final science project of the year.  That's one great thing about her taking an Agriculture (Ag) based science class in high school.  No volcanoes or projects like that, the kids get to raise something.  It could be chicks, or plants, or even a goat, pig, or steer.  There are barns at the high school so some of the larger animals can stay at school.

About a week before the Rhodies were due to be hatched and delivered to us, Becca and her friend Sophie caught sight of some Americauna chicks at the feed store.  Those are harder to come by, and there they were.  Americaunas have beautiful markings, but more than that, they lay green and blue eggs.  I've always wanted to have some!  Since we were preparing to have chicks in the house anyway, I agreed (somewhat eagerly, I admit) to get them.  I asked the guy at the store if the chicks were all sexed, and he said that they were as much as possible, but it's hard to tell this young.  He assured me that 95% of the chicks were hens.

We brought home Athena and Persephone (Percy for short).


They grow fast!  The following photo was taken at just about a month old.  At nearly six weeks they are even bigger now.


We've been hearing odd noises from the chicks in the morning lately.  I thought at first they were learning how to cluck, growing out of the cheep and peep.  It hit me yesterday, when I heard the rhythmic and repetitive sound, that one of the Americauna chicks is probably a rooster.  I like roosters, though I am disappointed that this means 50% fewer blue and green eggs.  The good thing about this is that we'll have more farm music.  I love Foghorn Leghorn's crows greeting me in the morning.

No comments:

Post a Comment