Last weekend, with the sun shining brightly overhead, and the wind whipping across the back of the house, we decided to bring the newest Newbies into the front yard again for some exploration. To encourage foraging, Tool Lady threw down some feed and a few kernels of corn. They were very excited about it all!
While they were pecking around, I played in the hoop houses, harvesting spinach, checking on the beets and carrots, watering and planting a few new seeds (I couldn’t resist! I planted a new row of beets and a row of dwarf snap peas…one row in each hoop house). While playing in the dirt, I found a few worms…and who loves worms more than chickens??? So, I handed a few off to Tool Lady and we tried to get the chicks excited about protein.
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| Do you see the little worm on the ground? She had it, then dropped it, then proceeded to stare at it for the longest time before picking it up again and running around like crazy |
It took a little bit for them to figure it out, but once they did, they ran around chasing each other like freaks! Hilarious!!!
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| Tool Lady and her Newbies 🙂 |
After laughing at the Newbies for a bit, we brought out one of the Original 5 to see how she might react to the Newbies. We were a bit nervous, hoping she wouldn’t freak out and attack them, but she didn’t even care. She gave them a few sideways glances and then went straight to pecking around and enjoying the sunshine. The Newbies thought she was great and followed her around for a while, chirp, chirp, chirping for her attention.
I really can’t wait for the weather to warm up for a while. I’m ready for regular sunshine, less wind, sprouting seedlings in the garden and more eggs from the hens 🙂 Spring is almost, officially, upon us!
Cute, cute! All of it. Cuteness overload 😉
-Jaime
What a great post! It reminds me of last year when we had “Peeps” living in the house in a large dog kennel.
Right now we are working on making Warre hive boxes so we can become beekeepers! Would love to hear more about your bees!
Oh…bees are the best! Now that we’ve had them for almost a year, I can’t imagine not having bees (even with the nasty allergy I have)! I look forward to reading about your bee adventures!
I just want to comment that my husband and I love your chick posts.We are vegetarians, but eat humane certified eggs. We look forward to the day we can have our own chicks.
We have the same yard space as you do, but waiting to install a fence before we bring some little ladies into the experience.
We also see that our town’s old zoning calls for 100 yards between homes, which we don’t have. 🙁
In any case, it’s delightful to read about your experiences.
I’m so glad to hear that you and your husband are enjoying the chick posts! You mentioned “old zoning”…is it still enforced? Luckily, here in SF, we could have as many chickens as we want…even roosters. It might be worth asking around to see if it’s enforced or if anyone is thinking about trying to get it changed. I mean, really, who has 100 yards between homes anymore?!
I’m not sure, and it’s definitely something we will look into. We are in New Jersey, so people can get ornery on their neighbors.LOL
And we really want to keep bees too, this is a lifelong dream of mine. The fence has to go up first though, we have kids in the neighborhood who can be disrespectful of property. We want to be able to keep our little friends safe. 🙂
I love when they peep and run around with a worm. If they could speak I think they would say, “Na, na, ni na, naaah, you can’t have it!”
Betty did that last year to the ducklings. It was too funny. They would follow her around and she’d make them crazy trying to snatch the worm from her. After we got a few more chicks that were younger than her (she was still a chick her self), she became the youngest mother I’ve ever known. The two Ameraucauna chicks just two weeks younger would try to keep warm underneath her, and she kept them warm. Her instincts kicked in. Even though the Ameraucaunas are now grown and laying eggs, they will still try to get underneath her if they’re scared or cold. LOL
Oh! That is the sweetest story! I love it! I have thought about sticking a few of our newest newbies under a chicken just to see what they might do…but I haven’t yet…
they are just so darn cute!
I love to see little ones (babies, toddlers, chicks, puppies, kittens) figure out things for the first time. The worm photos are spectacular! Tool Lady looks like she’s in love! Great post!
The Little Ones are definitely the best of us 🙂 Tool Lady is definitely in love!!! 😉
They are so cute! You have a really spring there!