Playing Favorites?

We are not supposed to favor one over the other...right? We are supposed to love them all equally...yes? And I do, I think. Most of the time. Or maybe everyday I have a new favorite? There are enough to have a favorite for each day of the month. Thirty one to be exact. Thirty one little chickies. Some living in a temporary coop in our carport, the others a bit younger and living in a cardboard box on top of our dryer, with a lamp to keep them cozy.

Our first batch (26 of them) arrived in early February. Two were dead on arrival, and within the next 48 hours, six more died. We later read somewhere that you can expect 25% of the day old chicks to die within the first couple of days. So there you have it. When the girls were about three weeks old, we had them outside in a run while we were in the house. I heard some major chirping and freaking out, I looked out the window to see a mongoose running to the bushes with two of our chickies. I could not save them, I was just too slow. We were down to Sixteen chicks. A good friend of ours adopted five, so we are left with eleven. A very manageable sized flock.

We have:

3 Buff Orpington

2 Rhode Island Red

2 Black Star

2 Barred Rock

2 Araucana

Araucana (my favorite for today)

We loved our little chickies sooo much, we went a little crazy! You see, we thought we needed more. They are just that cute! Not to mention very entertaining. Oh and did I tell you how much the kids love them? Bella begs to carry them around all day long. When I say no, I have to deal with major tantrums. You know what else?? They eat bugs. Yep, lots and lots of them. They especially seem to love the little roaches around here that totally creep me out. So, UMMM yeah, we ordered more. Twelve more.

They arrived late February. All 23 of them. Yep, we ordered twelve, and received twenty three! The second batch was from a different Hatchery, one that they guy at the feed store recommended. They sent the twelve that we ordered, plus eleven males (didn't specify the breed) for warmth. We lost only three of them. HMMMM Now we have all these little boys running around here. Guess we're gonna have to eat them.

In the second batch, we have:

1 Silver Spangled Hamburg

3 Araucana

3 Buff Catalana

3 Rhode Island White

Silver Spangled Hamburg (also todays favorite)

The girls get lots of love around here, and the older ones are becoming quite tame.

We should have our first eggs in July (crossing our fingers).

(Blogger completely re-formatted my post, so it's all squished together. I'm to Html illiterate to fix it... believe me I tried! Doing more harm than good)