School Chicks

15mar2009 web

March2009 1143 web

A few weeks ago I took these two chickens to school to visit the Kindergarten class.

They both got a bath before we went, and dried with the hair drier. One didn't mind and the other seemed to enjoy. I put them in an old rabbit cage together and loaded up an egg carton with a variety of the eggs we get.

I took a couple of the biggest eggs we get, a couple of the smallest, a few pink eggs and peach eggs and some greenies.

I let the kids pass the eggs around and everyone got to pet the chickens, both of whom behaved very well.


I put Thalia the little brown hen in the cage what I fielded questions from the kids and while I was holding Greta, the black and white hen, Thalia laid an egg in the cage. A green egg. She is my green layer.

The kids all got to hold and pass around a fresh laid warm egg. Not a single one of them said it was gross. Not one. It was pretty cool.

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expensive chickens

Back in April I ordered five Americauna chicks from the farm store. And after we had had them for a month,  the dog in a fit of jealousy and getting into things she shouldn't, let them out of their box, and proceeded to pounce or play or grab and shake them while no one was home. She killed all five of them.

I was heartbroken, and incredibly angry. The dog, was very close to being killed or taken to the pound. I know someone out there is thinking, but she is just a dog. Yep, just a dog. But a dog who tore up the kitchen, that day, drug a bag of garbage into the bedroom to destroy, and urinated and defecated on my bedroom floor. She was willfully  disobedient.

She did not chew mangle or eat the chicks, and that is the only reason she is not gone. She screwed up, she destroyed and got into things she knew she shouldn't, so she got in serious trouble, and she spent a week in her kennel, only getting out to eat and go out side to stretch, and "go". Hubby was ready to take her to the pound, I was so angry. And had she eaten the chicks, I'd have let him. There is no fixing a chicken eater.

We are partly responsible, as we did not lock the kennel. So the blame is split. Last week the boys and I went out to check on and play with the kittens and in a jealous fit she destroyed the kitchen garbage. So, she obviously can't be left out of the kennel if we are not in the house. And when I take showers or have to go to the basement to do laundry I lock her up.

I ordered more chickens. It was too late to get more from the farm store, and hatcheries who ship to you have to ship about 20 to ensure that the chicks are warm enough to survive the trip. After some investigating I ordered from a hatchery in Missouri, that Hubby could get a load going past and pick up the chicks. He got a load going the other way. :|  So, I had to go get the chicks or forfeit the order.

$100 in gas and 13 hours in the car. Half of which was spent listening to the chicks peep. Incessantly. Apparently the reason they don't travel well is because they don't sleep.  These girls has better lay some really fantastic eggs.

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