It Began: The First Chicks Come Home

It was April 11, 2020. Maybe there was a plan, but like so many things that happened to all of us in early 2020, there wasn’t quite as much prep as might have been made in a non-global-pandemic type setting. A quick trip to Tractor Supply, presumably for seeds and garden stuff, quickly became the day that we brought home eight* new chickie girls (probably girls. . .)**. My chicken-co-parent to-be, S., was characteristically prepared with a list of the items we needed to get started:

• pine shavings (cedar has oils/fumes that are toxic for chickies),
• drinker,
• feeder,
• high protein chick starter/grower crumble (we’ve not yet used medicated, and so far, so good),
• warming lamp and bulbs,
• and the best of all: eight tiny, sweet, fluffy little chicken girls.

Unlike S., I was a bit (as I often am) seat-of-my-pants. I knew the chickening was imminent, but I don’t think I had totally grokked that this was the day. As he collected the other essentials, I was generously positioned at the chick cage and asked to pick our girls. Like the VERY best part of the outing as far as I could see. Pick out the beautiful sweet baby angels who are to become our new extended family? On it!

I did some very quick Googling based on the breeds available that day, looking at their temperaments and laying tendencies, and settled on:

• two Barred Rocks (Soon to be Deirdre, Edie. . .),
• two Easter Eggers (. . .Lady, Peggie. . .),
• and four Blue Wyandottes (. . .and Freckles, Gertrude, Ocho, and Shiny).

There were a few other other varieties available, including White Leghorns. While Leghorns are unquestionably great layers, they were also described as having an “active, nervous, flighty” temperament, which I was not sure we were looking for, not yet anyway. Also, white eggs—though eggs would be months away—were not as exciting a prospect as some of the more enchanting egg colours (blue, green, brown, speckled) from the calmer breeds.

Spoiler alert: In our third batch of chicks we did adopt a California White, which is a White Leghorn and California Grey cross. White eggs. Prolific layers. She is a doll and loves a little hand-held attention. Snoopy is feisty and charming…a little quirky, but not nervous.

All the chickies were the same size and shape with playful variations in color and feather patterns. They were packed carefully into their chickie takeaway boxes (the same shape that sometimes holds donuts). With some peeps of protest and disliking (It’s cold in here! Who are these other chicks?), we headed to the cashier.

Little did they know they were on their way to a (while imperfect) backyard chicken dream life. To be named, loved, spoiled, fed, and allowed to (mostly) free-range to their hearts content. Sure we didn’t have a brooder yet, or a coop, or a house***. . . but that would all come together with time, ingenuity, and hard work. Credit where it’s due: largely S.’s hard work as chief and sole chicken house designer and builder. <3

*Depending on where you find your chicks, there may be minimums. Tractor Supply requires purchasing a minimum four chicks. Rural King’s minimum is six.
**Larger breed chicks are often offered as “sexed” which means they should all be future hens, but not always. “Straight run” chicks have not been sexed. These are often bantams, because are too small to be IDed. I have no idea how they can tell with any of them, they are all so tiny. But, key point “straight run”  means you could pick all future hens. . . or all future roos. Good luck!
***Heads up on chicken habitats, citing a master, The Chicken Chick: “Their habitat will never be complete.” Accept this now and your future will truly go as planned: endless work.