The newest chicks (Gray Rangers) arrived early this morning! Sue’s phone rang at 6 a.m.; the Post Office was calling her to “please come pick up your chicks!” They are simply little, bitty fluff balls at this point. Fifteen of them came in a container no bigger than a regular shoe box! They are different colors, which surprised me- they are not all gray, some are buff colored and various shades of buff and black. It will be interesting to see how the feather out. They are busy investigating their new place, napping under the heat box or basking in the warmth of a heat-light, eating, drinking – you know, just being baby chicks. Sue decided to try putting their feed in an egg carton to start off; they just dig it! They can scratch and eat and, at this point, the food doesn’t go flying all over the place – genius! We like them a lot (of course) and are thinking of keeping all the hens and one rooster; this way we may be able to raise them ourselves. So that means that the number of chickens available for purchase is TBD.  Still taking orders on a first come, first served basis; so let us know.

Other news… the ducks have graduated to the outside during the day!  They love it.  They have a little tub that allows them to get as wet as they’d like and it’s been warm enough that they dry off pretty quickly. They are not completely feathered, so the water isn’t running off them yet. Close, but they have a bit more to grow. After a day of messing around in the water and enjoying the sunshine, they are still happy to go inside and sleep in the warm coop.  The coop has been nice and warm at night lately; the weather has been quite balmy and so it heats up during the day, but the heat lamps that are on right now help with that as well. The biggies are a bit hot when they first decide to go in, but we leave the window open to make sure they have some fresh air.

Finally, just a quick update on Roman – he’s bigger! I know that it’s no surprise really. He’s quite attached to Sue, but he does allow others to hold him. His first choice, though, is Sue and if we let him out while taking care of the newbies, he follows Sue all around the coop. Tomorrow we’re going to see if he’ll follow her as she does the outside chores so he can get a bit more exercise. We try to let him out of the little cage as much as possible. Once the ducks can stay outside all the time, he’ll graduate to their spot. Then we’ll try to integrate him with some of the chicks. As all this continues to unfold, we’ll keep you posted.  Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

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Today’s Weather: Another beautiful day. It was 49° when I left for work this morning around 7 a.m. Warmed up to a nice 82°.  Currently (7:41 p.m.), it is a balmy 65°.  Winds are predicted for tomorrow and the high is supposed to be 83°.  If the winds are high, and it’s that warm, it means we’ll be watering trees and plants on Sunday.

Egg Report: Today we had a visit from our young friend Gus (and his mom, Holly, too). He was a big help with the chickens and ducks.  He also was a GREAT egg hunter; he found 7 eggs.  None in the walls today, but several were hidden in the corners under the hay. One was pecked on – this is the third time it’s happened, so we’re scratching our heads about that right now.