Here are half our new family members. To tell the truth, I'm scared to death to have them! I've never really had a pet (only a dog for a couple of teenage years that I didn't have to take care of) and although I have lots of children, I know how to care for them. I don't know how to care for pets, chickens specifically.
I don't know if these are pets or food-producers. Probably both, as I hear the hens will be friendly and have their own little personalities as they get older. I can already see the Rhode Island Red (the one here, which belongs to E) is kind of a bossy one and likes to hog the food bowl. The Barred Rocks are supposed to be friendly and accomodating, so I hope they get their share.
The gray Barred Rocks are about three weeks old and the RIR and the one I'm not sure about (C's, pictured here) are about a week old. They have to grow quite a bit before we can expect to see any eggs. They say 18-20 weeks is about average. If so, that means we should be starting to see eggs around the first day of Spring.
S's chick is the same variety as mine--Barred Rock. She went to see a stage production of Charlotte's Web today, so her chick is named Charlotte. I'm going to find out how to say "chicken" in Korean, and if it is pronounceable to me, that's going to be my chick's name.
Here are all the ladies eating dinner.
We just got 6 14-week old hens for the first time too! I think being scared a little must be part of the fun (the first two nights I was terrified that I would awaken to little hen screeches of terror as something tried to eat them- we have lots of animals here in Northern CA)! Good luck!!
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