Easter chicks

Our little chicken farmers had a rough day on Wednesday ( the same day I posted about our adventures in chicken raising). For some reason the breaker where our heat lamps were plugged into got tripped (we think maybe moisture somehow from all of the snow we had). When we went out after supper to care for them, we discovered they were without heat and several of them didn't make it. We are very lucky that most of them lived, but we probably lost 12-15 and didn't really count as we cleaned up & put down fresh shavings. Charlie kept saying he was "so mad" and "so sad" but overall he took it pretty well as we explained sometimes things like this happen and we can't help it. We fired up the propane heater to warm up the shop & got the lights going again & hoped they would all make it. There were a couple that looked really tough but they all pulled through & looked fine the next morning.

 

Now that our numbers were definitely under 50, I decided we should hurry and get a few more so that the replacements wouldn't be too far behind size wise. On Thursday we went to try and get some more. The ones they had on hand they'd gotten on Monday so they are really close in age to the ones we already have. I think the guys working felt bad as Charlie exclaimed, "A BUNCH OF OUR CHICKS DIED." because we paid for 24 but came home with 31 more...

 

Even though they're only a few days younger than our originals, they are pretty different in size so we put them in our basement for a few days until they get a little bigger. Erik built a box that we keep potatoes & onions from the garden in so we just cleaned them out and put them in there. Of course the boys love having them so close so we can check on them a lot. I'm trying to not be extra paranoid about our house potentially smelling like poultry. We have not had any more casualties. Hopefully it will warm up soon and they will all do good from here on out. It was just too cold on Wednesday, even in the shed.

 

 

I decided that night that since we had already broke down and were letting animals live in our house (even if it is just our gross basement) we needed to do a little Easter photoshoot.  Any time other than late evening would have been better for light, but there's no way I could have controlled these 2 wild guys & baby chicks so we need dad to help us :)