Saturday, April 23, 2011

"My life gets kinda boring, need something that I can confess"

-"Secrets" by One Republic

I've been beckoned back to blogging. So. Many. Requests! Haha, okay maybe just a handful but it's enough. I will continue to document our life here at the Leavitt Estate for the world to read. So, read on:

Our big news is that I single-handedly hatched 5 chicks in a homemade incubator! BIG NEWS!
It was a proud moment for me.
It's like giving birth. It's like giving birth to adorable fluffiness. It's like giving birth to adorable fluffiness that poops everywhere! Seriously, everywhere. They are cute though. Here they are:

Davis & Grayson went to Meema & Papa's for Spring Break but Leah stayed home to see them hatch. I wasn't sure if we'd have any actually hatch since I had made the incubator (yeah, I made the incubator!)
and the thermostat didn't seem to keep a very even temperature.
But she had faith.
Our first one hatched around 5am Tuesday morning (I woke her up to see it) and the last one hatched at 8pm.
She was so excited the entire day.
And now we all love them with all our hearts. Ok, maybe not Jeff. I didn't ask. I love them with all my heart and if he says he doesn't like them it will break my heart so we are on a "don't ask don't tell" policy about the chickens. Okay?
He did however get a farmer's tan building the outside chicken coop this morning so maybe he doesn't hate them.
But to be honest we have a lot. Some teachers at the elementary school hatched eggs in their classrooms and then were going to give the chicks to the Gilcrease Sanctuary but I had a mom friend who had been taking care of some see if they'd give them to me (you know, for free!) and so we acquired 5 chicks who were about 2 weeks old. Here's a picture of them yesterday at about 3 weeks old:

And then I bought 4 more day-old chicks from the feed store because they were too cute!
So now we have 14 chicks total!
I only want about 6-10 hens but there no accurate way for a layperson such as myself to sex them until they're older
(the 10 that were hatched locally have a 50/50 chance of being female and then the 4 from the hatchery-where they do have methods of semi-accurately determining their gender- have an 80-90% chance).
We'll know for sure in about 2 months and then we'll decide what to do with the roosters or extra hens. Until then we're going to enjoy our pets. You know, our pets that will someday provide food for us :)

2 comments:

Jocie said...

We totally want chickens, but maybe next year. And I think we will stick with 3. Good job hatching them!

Autumn said...

I swear they're so cute they multiply :)