Belana's Chicken Experience: The Kitty Kaper

(We had a very interesting day, yesterday, with our chickens. We call it the Great Kitty Kaper, even though it involved the cat and one of our dogs. B'eLana wanted me to post the information about it without her input. She said that it was a horrible experience and didn't want to talk about it.

Before we get to the great Kitty Kaper, I am going to post yesterday's measurements. We have decided that these chickens are growing so fast that we need to weigh and measure them every day. Here are yesterday's stats:

Flower weighed in at 2.9 ounces and is 6.0 inches long from beak to tail. I should mention that we are measuring length based on their necks being stretched out as much as I can make happen with one hand measuring from their beak to their tail feathers. So do not expect the length measurements to be very accurate.

Rhoda weighed 2.2 ounces and measured 5.5 inches long.
Daisy, the temporary name given to the Barred Rock while Kevin figures out what he wants to call her, weighed 1.8 ounces and measured 4.75 inches in length.

We have also learned that one does not need to feed chicks "chick grit" if feeding processed chick starter food. This is good to know. We have been making sure they have grit every day afraid that they would end up having a fermenting problem and die a horrible drunken death.

Ok, now on to the Great Kitty Kaper. Prelude: We have been experimenting with different light sources and distances from their pen to find the right balance between warmth and cool. We finally found a setup that we thought would work so we placed our thermometers, put the lid back on, put the pen on a stool so we could check on it periodically and went to watch "Quantum Kitchen" which we had recorded a few days ago. (Just as an aside, I can't wait to see what he does with chicken!)

After a while, I went into the kitchen to make some supper when suddenly, there was a crash coming from the dining room. My daughter was first on the scene. She was wailing, "The chicks! Oh, no, the chicks are upside down!" As I rounded the corner I noticed the cat crouched by the sliding glass door across the room with his tail twitching and ears back. I turned to see the pen upside down! I quickly righted the pen to find that there was only ONE chick in the pen. Suddenly, there was movement in the large pile of pine shaving bedding and Flower emerged shaking her head in indignation to clean off the shavings. She was followed by Rhoda who was flapping her wings in obvious annoyance. All the chicks were fine. Now, we needed to get things cleaned up since their water and food had spilled all over their bedding. We transferred the chicks to a clean tote while I went outside to empty the pen and wash it out.

When I returned I found that my wife had put all the chicks on the lip of the tote. They were all doing a fine job of just roosting there, chilling out and keeping an eye on the cat who was still in the corner by the door, tail twitching. He was obviously trying to figure out what went wrong in his attempt to secure a fresh chicken dinner. At this point, our big dog, Red, came in to the room to see what everyone was up to. Noticing the chicks on the tote lip he was curious and began to smell them. My wife and I thought this was adorable and wanted to take a picture of it. But, before we could get the camera Red decided he wanted to play with the chicks and proceeded to try to put one in his mouth. Naturally, chickens being prey and dogs being predators, this was not a situation the chick enjoyed finding herself in and she jumped back before Red could succeed in his attempt. Additionally, I saw it happening and was able to grab the dog before he could get too close to hurt the chicks.

Poor chicks, barely two weeks old and already have had two attempts on their lives. Well, I guess that's what happens when you are at the bottom of the food chain. If they only knew what is in store for them in about four of five years!

So we decided that it was time to build the chicks a new, more secure pen for the next few weeks of their lives.

We have an old entertainment center in our living room that my wife's father built many years ago (back when he personally cut the lumber from the Sahara Forrest). Since we don't have a television small enough to fit in the TV section, I built a very simple removable pen for them to place in there. Now we have CV; Chickvision! Notice that we went ahead and bought a new waterer for them. They just kept fouling up the home made one and I was having to change the water four or five times a day. This one works much better for them. I have also put two feeding dishes in for them.

If you look very carefully at the picture above you will notice another chick in the pen! Yes, we went and bought a fourth chick, a Polish Banty we named Jadzia. This name is Polish and also satisfies the Trekkie in us.

Now for today's measurements and weights:

Flower weighs 3.2 ounces (up .3 ounces from yesterday) and is now about 6.75 inches long.
Rhoda weighs 2.5 ounces (up .3 ounces from yesterday) and is now about 6 inches long.
Daisy weighs 2.2 ounces (up .4 ounces from yesterday) and is now about 5.25 inches long.
Jadzia weighs 1.1 ounces and is about 4 inches long.