one girl's chicken is another girl's horse

Yippee for me! I now only have to clean up after the chicks once a week!!! Currently I have been doing it twice a day. The chicks/chickens are snuggled up in their coop right now. I named alot of them too! As you may know, 8XnoY is not only about the chicks, it is also about baking products and selling them. So, I (all by myself) tried out a gingerbread recipe today. It is called Grandma's Gingerbread which was a huge success. (I secretly ate a lot of the batter!)

logo

We got a logo for Gourmet Girls thanks to a "fairy godmother" with a history in the advertising business. Gourmet Girls is part of the 8 x no y business that sells food. Doesn't it look great!?

Coop

Our coop finally came! The chickens will have such a great time in it, we just need a fence. Sometime soon we are going to put them outside. I wonder how big they will be in one more week?In september they will hopefully start to lay eggs and then we can sell them! Some of the chickens will even lay blue and green eggs. Happy Easter (almost)!

Free!!

My mom and I decided to let the chicks free in our garage for a while. So, we went out and bought some deer fencing which we hung in our garage as a makeshift pen. As soon as they were let out of their brooders, they huddled in the center of the garage! Slowly as they calmed down, the chicks seemed to like tormenting my sister! One Wyandotte walked up to her and just stared. My sister did not now what to think! Suddenly the Wyandotte flew up, and flapped his wings in her face! Immediately my sister started crying as the rest of my family was laughing.

Then, some of the Rhode Island Reds thought that my other sister was a roost! First my sister picked on up and set in on her arm. Then another one hopped over and jumped on her arm. The Rhode Island Reds all kept jumping on her arms until they fell asleep while still sitting on her!

Luckily the coop is coming on Wednesday, and then all...most of this chaos will be over.

Monster Chicks!!!!

I was away for a while and when I came back, I was almost scared of the little...big chicks! They probably doubled in size and they seem a lot more like adult chickens. One new thing is roosting. My mom put a hanger cover into their brooders for them to learn how to roost on but they were naturals! I guess whenever I held them it was like their practice. The bad part about all of them roosting is that the two hanger covers are not enough! So, being the smart chicks they are, they improvised! Now they fly up on top of the water container and sit there like queens!! (But, they don't know how to get down.)

I am getting very tired of calling them "chicks" or "her" I want to name them! We made a list of names from around the world that my mom and dad came up with. What I did not know was that those names were chicken dishes from around the world! If you want the complete list of names, here it is:
Tandoori
Delight
Satay
Vindaloo
Cola
Fiesta
Paella
Molé
Fricassé
Divan
Kiev
Ms. Snerkey
Pio-Pio
Yakitori
Teriaki
Kung-pao
Sesame
Caccitore
Nugget
Schnitzel
Gumbo
Lemon
Pico (Died)

Now you are probably wondering how I could not realize the ones like Chicken Delight and Lemon Chicken. Even my sisters figured some of them out! For some reason I could just not understand the names! I am not too upset about the names because I know that my monster sized chicks will never be turned into fiesta chicken and chicken paella! Unless my cat finds out!!

Are You a Dumb Chick?

Some people think that chicks are too dumb to play games and do other things like that. If that is true, my chicks must be Chicken Hawkings or Chickert Einstein! We have devised a simple game with them and almost every one of them joins in! First you ask, "Are you a dumb chick?" Then slide your finger back and forth; if you have brainiac chicks, they will shake their heads. Next you ask, "Are you a smart chick?" Then shake your finger up and down. Of course, they will shake their heads up and down.

Another fun game with the chicks is, Wormy Finger! Make sure you have the chicks' attention, then tap your finger on the side of the brooder. Most of the chicks will try to peck at your finger like a worm! Then you can experiment with tapping your finger up high and making them jump, and tapping down so low that they can't see it. One of my chicks, Tandoori, tries so hard to get my finger it's hilarious! When I tap up high, she wiggles to her tippi-toes and stetches her neck up. Sometimes the other chicks bump into her while she's doing this and she just topples over!

A Tragidy!

(Sad music could play now!) This was a tragic day. My favorite chick Pico, died. While I was cleaning the paper towels out of the brooder, I saw a small gray fluff stretched out on the floor, dead. We suspect that she died from the older chicks standing on top of her while she was sleeping. My babysitter, said that two of the chicks were younger than the rest; those two were Pico and another unnamed gray one. I am very sad about Pico, even though my mom said that many chicks die in the first week!

So far this morning, we have changed the paper towels twice! (If you are a strict environmentalist you should not get chickens; we use about thirty paper towels a day in just one brooder!) We have also cleaned two chickens with pasty butt! Pasty butt is a disease that many chicks get, it is when the poop sticks to it's butt and clogs up it's "valve".
If you see a chick with Pasty butt, this is what to do. First make sure that it's "valve" is open, if it is not it won't be able to poop and it could die! If the valve is not open, get a washcloth or rag and moisten it with warm water. (You may need a helper to do this part.) One person can hold the chick carefully and the other person can gently wipe away the poop. (I think it is best to use circular motions.) After attempting to wipe it away check again to see if the "valve" is open. If it is not keep wiping with the cloth. If it is but there is still some poop, you may cut some of the down around it's "valve". After doing all of this you should rub some vasaline on so that no more poop sticks to your chick's butt.

Chicks at Last!

I never expected that a cardboard box would leave such an impression on my life! Inside that box were tiny, fluffy, curious, and to my babysitter...delicious, chicks! As soon as I opened the box my sisters and I were blown away, How could such a small box contain all this?

We ordered 23 chicks, 22 hens and 1 rooster (because of a bad childhood experience, my dad did not want a rooster, so we haven't even told him!) Carefully, one by one, my mom and I placed each chick in our homemade brooder and dipped them in the water.

Every chick as we picked them up would spread their legs and flap their little wings just like a full grown chicken. We were not sure if they would all survive the trip (they did!) We still are not sure if they will live the first couple weeks; but, so far they make it very reassuring!