Chicken Run

Two weeks ago we purchased six baby chicks. Flashlight and I had been talking about getting chickens for a few years. Once we were established in our new house with a big yard, it seemed like the right time.

This is one of the Brown Leghorns. They were so small and fluffy when we first got them!

We looked into ordering some rare breed chicks online, but eventually decided to get them locally. We picked up a White Leghorn, a Black Star (or Sexlink), two Brown Leghorns and two Rhode Island Reds. When we got them, they were only a day old and covered in cute little chick fuzz. They looked as though they could fit back into their eggs. Now, they are several times bigger and gaining weight at a tremendous rate. Many of their adult chicken feathers have grown in and they can fly. Yes, that's right, chickens can FLY. But only when they're little. Soon, they'll be to fat to lift off.

For the moment, the chicks live in a box under a heating lamp in our sitting room. Russ has nearly finished building their coop and they'll start living outside in a few weeks. I check on them a lot during the day and recently, they look startled and guilty every time I walk into the room. I think that they might be plotting to escape from their box. I've seen one of the Brown Leghorns fly up onto the rim of the box and I think that the Black Star is probably just as daring. One of these days Russ and I will no doubt wake up to find them on our bed.

Headbanger looks at the chicks.

But I have to say that they make great pets. While they're small and cute, they live inside and then when they grow into adult chickens, they spend the rest of the lives outside. And Headbanger adores them. She has taken to throwing her toys into their box - I think that its her way of "sharing". Every morning, she crawls into the sitting room and uses their box to pull herself to standing and begins to talk and squeal at them. I'm not sure that the chicks love this, as they often run to the other end of their box when they see her head peaking over the rim.

Flashlight built most of this last week - it still needs front doors. It is eight feet long, four feet wide and six feet tall.

Flashlight and I try to handle each of them every day, in an effort to keep them tame. Headbanger desperately wants to touch the chickens, and we often hold her hand and help her do that. She's also shown some interest in licking and head butting the chickens, but we try to prevent her from doing these.

In a few months they will start laying eggs, but their ability to do this will decline after they are a year old. We're contemplating eating them at that point, if we're not too attached, and getting a new batch of chicks. Is it wrong to eat your pets?