Chicks are Here!

Well, our vacations are done and the chicks arrived this morning (Friday the 18th--beautiful full orange moon this evening) at 7:30am when the post office called. Alex and I went down to pick them up right away. A friend of ours Karen and her son Brad and their Dad, took nine of them, and these six ladies will stay with us! They all still had their egg tooth, and the paperwork indicated that they hatched at 5am on Wednesday July 16th. They all appeared healthy and bigger than I expected. We inspected each one, introduced it to the water and put it under the warming light in the tabletop brooder we are using until we move them to their movable coop. This is the coop that we think we will be building over the next few weeks, they can go in it when they are about six weeks old--Catawba Coops plans. They knew exactly what to do with the water. The kids have named three of them, Speckles (by owen which is interesting because i am not sure if he knows they are going to look speckled as they are dominques), Lily (by Emma, she falls asleep with Emma holding her), and Flutter (by Alex because this one flies the most). The kids are fond of playing them music on the music box and bringing them grass clippings as well as any tiny bugs we find around the house and yard. They go beserk when you put an insect in the brooder! Kurt and I haven't named one yet, although Kurt is leaning towards Jerome for his name pick, I'm trying to get him to choose something a little more feminine :)--or maybe he suspects one of them is a rooster even though their markings are classic pullet. As of day four they are fine with being handled, not picking at each other and already growing mature feather buds on their wings and tails. Their fluff has started to fall of occasionally. Emma is telling me that she is going to miss when they are tiny like this after they grow, I told her I understood, that I missed when she was tiny sometimes, too.....We are sorry the incubating didn't work, but are thrilled to finally have the chicks here after being disappointed in April/May.