One Day at a Time: New chicks - because I AM the Crazy Chicken Lady

Because I am that woman, J and I had quite an adventure today.

I've been enamoured with the Welsummer breed of chicken since I first learned about them a few years ago. The chocolate brown eggs - oh those eggs! I ordered one last year (in my mail order chicken debacle) and sadly the little peeper didn't make it. Note to self, shipping is not kind on chicks. When I was perusing the Concord Feed Store chick calendar this past month, I saw that they were getting Welsummers in. And in an OK (not great) window of our existing chicks being young enough to accept the new ones and us leaving town for a long weekend. You have to be very careful introducing baby chicks to girls older than two weeks because the big ones are SO much larger than the little girls. Best case is that they leave them alone and only step on them at times, worst case is that they peck them and/or keep them away from the food and water and you end up having to separate them.

Anyhoodle, I learned when we picked up Logan the Loud, that the colored egg layers go very quickly and are usually only offered at the main location about an hour from me. J had gymnastics this morning and so we couldn't head over till that was finished. Then he wanted to stay for open gym. So we stayed. Me getting more and more antsy. I tried calling the feed store to see if they'd let me buy some over the phone but couldn't get through. I called my local branch and they called them and called me back saying that I should probably head over if I wanted the chicks because people were in there buying them RIGHT NOW. I loaded J in the car and off we drove slightly faster than the speed limit. Had to find the feed store (wrong turn, looking at the wrong side of the street, another wrong turn), walked in only to discover that they had just sold the last two "5 minutes before you got here". ARGH! One of employees overheard and said "oh I just sent 10 over to another (distant) location". Throw J back in the car and race to this other location. Got lost. (Of course). Found the place, walked in and they had just put the Welsummers out! Yahoo! We got our pick of the batch! I still feel so accomplished! I'm a Crazy Chicken Lady! I picked up two because well, they're Welsummers and because if they were going to be abused by the big girls and I needed to separate them then they'd need a buddy. Chickens are social and need a friend. And because they're Welsummers. I will now have, if they all make it and they're all girls, 9 hens. We're going to need a new coop (you listening honey?).

The little peepers are doing fine, they've cuddled up with the big girls which I find interesting. I'd think they'd want to avoid those big feet but what do I know? I'm not a few days old chick. I'm just glad that it seems to have all gone smoothly. So far. Ah. Chickens.