Chick, Chicks Here

There are some things I had hoped I would never have to say.... One of them is: "My granddaughter's in love with a brown chick!"  but she is and it appears I was a contributing factor....All in the name of love.  Saturday afternoon we took a field trip..the whole famdamily....We must have caught Papa in an exceptionally weak moment.  Off we drove to Tractor Supply and Country Max.  Home we drove with 18 chicks and $200 worth of "Supplies!"  We have three different varieties, all layers.  If all goes according to plan, we should have three different colored eggs this summer....blue, lower in cholesterol, eggs and brown and white. I, personally, will be tickled "chicken sh--less" if they stay alive long enough to grow feathers.  That brings me to chapter 2 in "Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg."  The girls, Jess and B, cleaned out the smoke house and transformed it into the new chicken house.  They swept and shoveled and layered the floor with woodshavings.  Bailee hauled water and chicken feed and Papa rigged the heat lamp to keep the little pullets toasty.  Word is that 98 degrees is the optimum temp for brooding little chicks.  We attained the high 80's on a fairly warm, spring night.  Papa decided we needed to switch the bulb to a heat bulb....done.... After a few hours of yard work on Sunday, a chick check was performed.... Holy Smoke, literally... we had the light a (chicken )little too close to the woodshavings and a few were smoldering and BLACK.... I know, it is a smoke house but we weren't prepared to actually have fried chicken...and Miss B would likely never have forgiven us had we had a BarbBQ so soon....after all these are layers not meat chicks. Disaster averted and this morning all 18 were present and accounted for and near perfect temperature.  If we make it through the next couple of weeks, we may add a few pheasants to the mix and maybe even a couple of turkey chicks... Wouldn't the old McDonalds be proud of us.... and Grandma Iva too.   The fence will be going up soon and that will be the real test. We do live in the country and we do have foxes and hawks and all the things that like to prowl.  Bailee has assured us that she understands the "circle of life" and won't have the big one if we have a bit of attrition.... unless of course it happen to be that brown chick she's in love with.  We may well have a meltdown if a chick, chick here and a chick, chick there becomes a chick here and a chick there... Time will tell, we'll just keep our feathers crossed!!