New Chickies

This is little late in coming--but we were swamped a month ago when they were hatching out.

Our own little chickens have hatched. They are all mixed-up mutt chickens, and are very pretty as a result. We figure the white-ish ones are the Auracauna rooster's babies and the black-ish ones are Steve McQueen's. Most are black, so obviously the Auracauna rooster can barely get a sperm in edgewise, but he still managed a few. There are two very lovely silvery ones that look like a Barred Rock/Silver Spangled Hamberg cross. One of the silvery ones looked like a little bald eagle when it was newly hatched.

We got to watch them hatch. Right before the eggs hatched we could hear the babies peeping. A few of the eggs started to hatch but didn't make it out for some reason. We have 14 new babies now. They are already fairly grown up and look like little birds rather than fluffy little chicks.

They are terrified of the camera, if you can't tell from the way they are fleeing to the edges of their little chicken tractor coop. Maybe it's Steve's genes, but this batch of chicks seems unusually flighty. They are terrified of everything for about 10 seconds--including their food, until they realize it isn't going to eat THEM.