Doesn’t everyone have chickens in their dining room this time of the year?  If we had a bathtub, they would probably be in there. But we have a shower, so that means they are in the dining room.

Now, having 26 day old chicks in your tote box incubator for a day or three is just fun.  But these guys are going on week three now.  It’s just been TOOOOOO cold to put them out in the poultry barn big brooders!  Darn yucky weather.

Probably by the end of this week they can go out there.  They are getting feathered up and with a couple heat lamps, they should be okay.  I just hate to move them out there, even with heat lamps when the temperature in the barn is barely 30 or 35 degrees.  If for any reason a heat lamp failed, they would be dead by morning.  Can’t have that.

So…  we have chickens in our dining room.

They are SOOO messy with their water, so I built this little lift up platform!  It works great…  the slats help to keep shavings and poop from gathering too much.

We’ve tried just using a board or something but they tend to bring clingy bits of shavings and such up there and it just gets nasty.  With this, some of the shavings and such drop away.  Seems to be working pretty good, now on week two of using it.  I just stole some wood scraps from Maggie’s projects…

Because the little peeps have really outgrown their brooder box, Maggie made them a rec room addition off the back.  It’s pretty funny.  We’ve been feeding them in there and they love to dash in and out and scratch around.  Gives them a place to be less crowded.

(There is a chicken wire top for the rec room…  don’t need the kitties bothering the little peeps…)

Of course, they still love to sleep in the big blue box with the more direct heat lamp…  I think this is going to be a very bonded group of chicken nuggets!!!  They all snoooooze together and then go out on the back rec room together…  they are very happy, just a little crowded.  I sure hope we can get them out to the brooders in a few days.  It’s suppose to be in the high 40s which will mean the barn is about 50 or so…  enough for them to survive a few hours if we had a dual light failure.  And they will be older too, so that helps… most have all their beginning white feathers.  They are getting pretty darn big!  This picture was from last week!  I think they have nearly doubled in size already.  Will try and take a picture of them soon!!!