Week one

The babies are a week old! They are all eating and drinking and pooping like crazy. Little wing feathers have started to pop out and everyone is getting zippy. They tend to sleep like the dead the first few days, but now we are active and starting to be verbal. Cheep, cheep, cheep all day now. Thankfully they conk out at night, so it isn't cheep, cheep, cheep all night too!

This is one of the buff silkies.

This shot got most of all of them. One of the buffs is hiding behind the larger blue chick (an ameraucana from my pens). The one in front is a buff. The tiny one to the right is a black silkie. The black one with white eyes on the left is a black/lav split. Apparently one of the combinations you can get is a "flashy" black. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it possibly means spotted with white. It will be interesting to see what that little one turns out to look like.

The black and a buff silkie

A better shot of the black/lav split.
They are starting to scratch around in the shavings and I have started tossing them a few mealworms every now and then. The danger at this stage is "pasty butt" where poop clings to their fuzz and clogs up thier system. Warm paper towels and some cleaning take care of the problem, but they don't like having their tushies cleaned. I've had to do it a couple of times and now they all eye me with suspicion when I open the brooder. Hopefully I can bribe them enough for them to forgive the indignity.

It has been a happy, growing week!