Welcome Home!

My four little feathered friends finally arrived this afternoon and I am ECSTATIC. I decided that while they are so young and fragile, I will keep them in my studio, positioned right near a heater, with their heat lamp turned on high. It is important to keep them snug and cozy when they are this young. These little ones are less than a week old and they are the cutest little feathery poof balls I have ever seen. They make the cutest peeping sounds and I think they are going to be great company while I work.

In case you are totally grossed out right now, I will add...they don't smell at all...YET. All that I can smell is the sweet hay that I have lining their box. As soon as they get a bit hardier (and smellier), down the basement they go!
In five weeks, they will have grown their feathers and at that point they will be moved outside to their coop (which I still need to assemble!), but until then, I have little peepers sharing my studio with me. I am so in love with them already...aren't they the sweetest little things you have ever seen?

For those of you who are interested, I am going to share tips and tricks for raising your own chickens. This is by no means expert advice, this is just what I am trying (based on wonderful advice from my local feed store and countless books and blogs)!

In order to prepare for my chicks arrival, I needed the following equipment:
-Feed jar (see above picture)
-Water jar
-Hay (for lining their box and eventually their coop, newspaper can also be used until they move to the coop)
-A sturdy cardboard box
-Organic chick starter
-Heat lamp (the chicks home needs to be heated to 95 degrees F for their first week, drop the temp 5 degrees with each passing week)
-Thermometer

Watch your chicks carefully to monitor the temperature. If they are all clustered together right under the heat light, they are usually too cold. If they are spreading their wings out and seem sluggish, they are probably too hot.

More tips to come!