Belana's Chicken Experience: The Worm Experiment

Hello,

Yesterday Daddy built a small chicken run for the chicks. It is in the living room. He made it out of wood and screen. (It is about 2.5 feet wide and about 6 feet long.) The bottom is made of plywood so the chickens don't poop on the carpet. Mommy put in some dirt for the chickens to scratch. We put in some colored blocks and some toilet paper rolls and some marbles for them to play with. Then Daddy got the chicks out and put them in the chicken run. They started to run around and play. We put some food in the dirt so they would learn to hunt for their food.

Then I went outside to get some worms from the garden for them to eat. I put a lot of dirt with worms in it into a bowl. Then I brought it inside. Daddy got a worm out and put it in the chicken run. The chickens just looked at the worm. Then Flower pecked at it but she didn't eat it. Jadzia pecked at it a little but she didn't eat it either.

Daisy pecked at it, too. She liked it. She picked it up and ran around and around and around and around in the chicken run. She was trying to find a spot to eat it. She ran to one of the corners then ate the worm. The other chickens chased her a little but they didn't eat the worm.

Daddy put all the dirt in the pen so the chickens could learn to hunt for worms. Daisy found another worm and pecked it out of the dirt. Then she ran around and around in circles again. We all laughed at her. Then she ate the worm. Daddy picked out a worm from the dirt and she ate it right from his fingers! She LOVES worms.

But the other chickens didn't eat the worms because they didn't want to. Maybe Jadzia is too little.

Mommy put a mirror in the chicken run. That was funny. Flower thought there was another chicken. She wanted to fight it and ran into the mirror. Then she pecked at the mirror. Jadzia saw herself and thought it was another baby chick. She ran over to the mirror so she could cuddle with the baby chick. She bumped into the mirror. She is silly.

Daisy was too busy hunting worms to look at the mirror. Rhoda just pecked at the mirror a few times then left.

Today I am going to find more worms for the chickens. I am going to put a whole bunch in a container. Maybe we will feed more of them to the chickens.

That's all I want to say for today. I want to go get more worms. Ta-ta.

(As you can see, we had a lot of fun with the chicks yesterday. I will upload a video we took of Daisy eating worms. It is not a very good video, but it is a bit humorous.

Here are the weights and measurements for this morning:

Flower weighs 4.1 ounces and is about 7.25 inches long.
Rhoda weighs 3.5 ounces and is about 6.75 inches long.
Daisy weighs 2.9 ounces and is about 6.5 inches long (those worms must have triggered a growth spurt!).
Jadzia didn't gain any weight or grow any. She is still 1.4 ounces and about 4.5 inches long. Maybe she needs to start eating worms.

In the past 24 hours they have eaten about 12 ounces of food between the four of them (not including worms) and have drank about 1 pint of water.)

Here are some pictures we took yesterday: