More Arrivals!

It is a wonder how things happen sometimes and how the best laid plans can change... or multiply for that matter. About a month and a half ago.. mid April... When it was still very cold outside. I decided it would be a good time to order some chicks as our chicken house was sitting empty and we love fresh eggs. What I really wanted to do was order ready to lay hens but that would have required a five or six hour drive to pick them up so instead I decided we would have to order chicks. Buff Orpington's to be exact as they go broody fairly often and they can raise any babies needed in the future and according to my research lay more eggs than most chickens as well as laying most if not all of the winter.. At least that's the plan! I hope the chickens agree to it...

It seemed like a great idea and it would also give us the opportunity to do one more thing the old fashioned way. You see when you don't have an unlimited supply of electricity its not like you can just set up a heat lamp in the garage and raise the chicks there. Out of the house and out of your hair. Perfect temperature all the time. No worries right? Well, we don't have that kind of power, so our little peepers will have to come into the house and be warmed by the wood stove. This means having the wood stove going at the perfect temperature night and day. It would have been fine in April or even most of May but the chicks I wanted wouldn't arrive until June! Maybe June would be cool this year? Nope!

Now, I am not in anyway complaining! I love the warm weather we have been getting! But I have to say it is a good thing we have a bedroom on the main floor as well as one in the loft as it is too hot up there to sleep.

So here I sit with little peep peeps sounding throughout the house and a wood fire going while it is T-shirt weather outside. Life is grand!

So far the chicks have been doing well and while I was pretty worried about the temperature as I can't seem to keep it perfectly even for them I haven't lost one. Yeah! Of course it has only been a few days. Now I need to figure out what I am going to do with them as they get older. The twenty of them are fine in the container by the stove for right now but in a week or so they won't all fit and I will have to figure out how to get two containers by the stove.

Yep, going to get a little crowded in there soon!

It's so cute how they hug the side of the bin closest to the stove if they are a bit cool. All lined up in a row! They sleep like that sometimes too!