Chicks are here!

Do you like the new furniture in our living room?

Box on left are future laying hens and box on right are meat chickens.

 We couldn't put the chicks in the basement this year because our cat would eat them, so they take up space in our living room instead.  Thankfully it's a huge room and rather than being an inconvenience, it's cute to hear the peeping of the chicks and the scuttling of their feet across their wood chips all day.  The kids also love seeing them all the time.

This is by far their cutest stage - only about 5 days old.  In our pullet box (hens are called pullets until they're a year old), are six Australorp chicks, six Barred Rock chicks, nine Rhode Island reds, and one "Easter-egger" chicken which belongs to Clare.  I love the little black chicks!  We're trying out the Australorps and Barred Rocks this year, but since Rhode Island Reds have proven to be great all-around chickens, we had to add more to our flock.  Barred Rocks are supposed to be really friendly, which would be nice for the kids.  The Reds are pretty stand-offish.

They like to sleep all piled up.  These are the Freedom Rangers.

We must have accidentally received a Cornish Cross (jumbo meat bird).  He stands out, all white and taller than the others.

Acrobat Nora:

And Lena, just because she's cute and growing so fast:

She's figuring out how to grab onto her toys:

Karl refuses to be normal for a picture:

Love these kiddos!