hot chicks!

we've been busy with our new sweet chicks! out of the 3 breeds i special ordered at the feed store only one kind came in-the welsummers. a breed from holland that lays "dark" brown eggs. so we got 2 welsummers-but we wanted to increase our flock. so we raced across town to the "other" feed store to see if they had more babies. most were spoken for but we managed to get 2 black australorps(the last 2) -i was there first picking them out and almost had to wrestle for them. the other 2 are barred rocks. my bathroom is now a baby chick brooder. here are their names-daisy mae-after my great grandmother, cacao, kamakazie, minstrel, georgia(peach), susan-can you guess which ones the boys named?

the wonderful thing about having chicks before(last spring) is i have gotten first time jitters out of the way! i was a total freak-a-zoid the first time. worry about this and that(i read too many chicken books-friends had to tell me to quit reading!). i was sure i'd kill them. was the heat lamp at the proper temp.? what about the horrors of pasting up? i'd never done this before. and horrors of horrors-what about chicken cannabalism.-i was so stressed and worried-just like when i was a new mother. i managed to get them thru chickhood-all to have their lives taken by a dog party.-lucie was the only survivor. this was really hard for us.

this is Liam's little cacao-how sweet. i'm so relieved to be so much calmer this time around. way more fun-but i am a little guarded-afraid to get "too"close. their little lives are sooo fragile. and i have to be constant lookout for Luca Brasi(pronounced bratzi- for those of you who are not "godfather" fans.) she is a kitten who came to us last december-i was against it-we had such animal harmony. well- she is a lover and she is a killer! she's a bitty thing who even goes after wild turkeys not to mention the grown hens. check her out-

desperately trying to get to the babies!

note paws under door as i have the chicks free while i clean their big box! can you believe something so sweet can be so viscious-that's our luca brasi! well, i need to clean the chick box for the night-so i leave you with more addicting photos of these awesome little beings.

goodnight!