Cake Smash and Kittens!

Friday is normally a lighter day for us schoolwork wise, allowing us to spend time in nature, with friends, on field trips or catching up if we had a mid week field trip, etc.  Well, this Friday was spent adopting our first furry pets!  KITTENS!  

So far we have only had a beta fish and the baby chicks.  And although the chickens are entertaining, friendly and productive pets who do enjoy getting pet, it's not the same as a little purball furball kitten!  

We had promised the kids we would get a cat when we got a house...like 3 years ago...but when we got the house we had to get settled, by then we found out we were moving again and putting our house on the market so we held off again till we completed that move, but then we had a baby on the way so we held off till after the baby.  Well the baby just turned one....yeah...I can't believe it, ONE already, where did the time go?  I can't believe it was just a little over a year ago that the midwives showed up at our home on Labor Day to help deliver this little guy into the world who is now walking ALL OVER!

 The vultures have descended the second it appears baby is done with his cake....

So....yeah the kids have been waiting and waiting for a kitty and now that we passed that first birthday, it seemed like we could start thinking about it...like FOR REAL this time.

I get Farmer Sue's emails from The Art Barn and normally I don't open them because like most newsletters I subscribe to, who has time to actually read them?  Well, randomly I clicked on the most recent one and saw a picture of a kitten and the contact info.  

Apparently a pregnant stray cat showed up at this 76 year old lady's home and so she was looking out after her and when the kittens came she started taking care of them but was unable to find homes for them.  When I went there I had the intention of getting one male kitty.  Hubby and I agreed on only boy cats as based on our past experienced, male cats are way more chill and cool than females.  When we arrived at this womans home, she had 5 kittens in her screened in porch and they were a little older than I had anticipated and seemed more like wild cats.  I didn't realize they were wild cats essentially until I got there.  The first one I was drawn to was the most BEAUTIFUL kitten I'd even seen but if you went within 2 feet of it, it would hiss at you.  There were 2 others that didn't hiss but seemed terrified of people and were running up and down the wall railings to stay away from us.  Then there were 2 identical kittens, one male and a slightly smaller female and the kids were actually able to pick them up and hold them.  The kittens were 11-13 weeks old (not sure exactly) and after being unable to find homes and also not wanting to actually keep them, they were going to be sent to a shelter that night.  I picked up the boy and we left.  I pulled out of her neighborhood and was getting gas across the street and started debating.  Then as if they could read my mind, the kids started saying "Can we go back and get the twin sister?  They'll be so lonely without each other!" ugh I just decided what the heck, she was going to be sent to a shelter that night anyways, if we took her too and she ended up being wild and crazy we could still try and find her another home.  So we went back over and picked up the girl.

When we got home, I got anxious...like WHAT DID I DO?  The cats were so skiddish and would only run away and hide from us.  I was remember back in college when one of our roomates found a kitten that was adorable but it was wild and it ended up being like a devil cat.  Did I just bring home TWO devil cats?  

However, by that evening they started warming up and by the looks of this picture I took today, I can say within 24 hours they've gotten quite comfortable with us and made themselves at home, they spent the day on the screen in porch and J spent the whole day playing with them, petting them and napping with them.  They are turning into purballs!  If they were on the slightly less people friendly side of the spectrum, they are quickly warming up and enjoying the family....except for Cameron and his screeching whenever he sees them.

THE BOY

THE GIRL

Baby Chicks...One Week Old

Week Old Baby Chicks

I am pretty sure the chicks were about a day old when we got them so lets just say they are a week old here, I took this pictures on Monday, a week from when we got them :)  They are SO much bigger and starting to sprout feathers and test out their wings!

The brown Araucana is the only one with a name so far, We called her "Trouble" the first day because she was the most hyper and out of sorts when we first set them up in their box.  Last Tuesday J did her presentation at Classical Conversations on her new pet chicks and when she told her class the brown one was named Trouble she smirked and then said "cuz you know...(then started to sing) I knew you were trouble when you walked in...." lol.  

So far Trouble has the biggest wings and is the first to test them out..."flying" across the brooder (aka large cardboard box).  Trouble also seems to enjoy being held the most so far as well.  My husband comes home after work, goes into my closet (where they love right now) and says "Hey girls!" and they run up to him and look up at him...then Trouble will step up onto his hand when he lowers it into the box and just hang out with him.  So yeah, I can officially say I don't get jealous when my husband "picks up chicks"...lol ok lame joke but I had to do it :P

Check out Trouble's tail feathers poking out the back!  If she turns out to be a HE then HE really will be TROUBLE! lol

The Barred Rock chicks don't have names yet but my husband's great aunts came to mind the other day and suggested naming them Helen and Margaret, my hubby seemed to like that idea but we haven't actually officially named any of them...

I'm not sure which one it is, but one of the Barred Rock chicks is afraid of the dark...we have to keep a lamp in the closet with them at night because she starts crying when it's too dark.  Our neighbors have a heat lamp from their chicks we were going to borrow but so far we have been controlling their temperature in my walk in closet with a little space heater and a digital thermometer.

I love that the dark barred rock chicks have a soft yellow underside!

Trouble startled me this morning when I went in there, she was looking up at me and then tryied to fly straight up towards my face...she got pretty high! Not high enough to get out of the box yet though!

I set their water dish up n a brick to help keep it clean and they also seem to just enjoy the brick to stand on and peck at.

I also put a small branch in there for them to perch on....I wanted them to have some entertainment so I also cut up a toilet paper roll into a couple smaller tubes and then also seem to like playing(pecking) with them.  They do poop quite a bit but Tyler just laid down a bunch of newspaper so each day I just remove the top layer of paper and reveal the fresh paper underneath so it really is no big deal....I remember having hamsters as a kid..This is not any more work that that....actually less with with easy system of the newspapers we have going.  Once they are big and in a coop...I don't mind taking care of that because at least they earn their keep with the bug eating and egg laying!

New Additions! Baby Chicks!

Baby Chicks! 

We took the plunge!  Ever since we moved into this house about 7 months ago, we thought it would be great to have chickens, we loved the idea before but our old house was in a golf course community...I'm pretty sure backyard chickens weren't allowed!  Our neighbors here have an awesome chicken coop and we sometimes get to have some of their delicious eggs, but we wanted to raise our own chickens...so on Monday this past week we stopped in the local feed store and picked out 3 brand new baby chicks.  They are just too stinkin cute!

I recently took the kids on a field trip through our homeschool group to Farmer Sue's Art Barn which was just awesome and she is fabulous!  After the trip I was emailing with her about chickens and through talking to her and through researching the website My Pet Chicken I knew I really wanted some Barred Rock and Rhode Island Red chickens.  When we stopped by the feed store just to "look" they actually had the Barred Rock chicks as well as Ameraucana which lay blue eggs!  I ran into another homeschool mom there with her boys and they were raving about the blue eggs and how they were the best tasting eggs they've ever had so I decided to try one of those.  Here is a picture of our future blue egg layer! (I HOPE! They are supposed to be sexed but there is a small chance some might turn out to be roosters).  

I REALLY love the Barred Rock Cochin (or as Farmer Sue calls them...Pajama Pants!) But I think we would have to special order...this is a picture of J holding one of Farmer Sue's Barred Rock Cochin - Pajama Pants Chickens in her barnyard...they are beautiful!  I got 2 Barred Rock and they will look sort of like the one in the picture below minus "pajama pants".

I read a lot about the Barred Rock and Rhode Island Reds both being smart, ferocious hunters, and having good personalities which make them fun pets.  Both are known to be pretty hardy and good egg layers, producing large brown eggs.  We get plenty of crickets and other bugs in our yard so I think we will all be happy when these girls are out there feasting on all the bugs!  I'm also hoping they might put a dent in the scorpion population around here!

I love the Barred Rock chicks... they remind me of baby penguins...little dark balls of fluff...So far it's been easy, we have them in a large box lined with paper that we change daily, we gently handle them quite a bit so they get used to being held.  I've been adding a splash of Apple Cider Vinegar to their fresh water each day to help with the PH as well as help with their digestive health...and a little garlic powder to their feed as well, which I learned about doing from Fresh Eggs Daily's post about The Holistic Trinity for chickens.  Now I am having fun adding to my Backyard Chickens pinboard, learning all I can about the best tips for building our coop and keeping the chickens and coop as clean and healthy as possible!  And of course enjoying watching these cutie puff balls chip and grow and enjoying watching my kids enjoy them!

 We have a thermometer in the box with them and adjusting their temp as needed...they currently seem happiest between 82-84 degrees F.  The Rhode Island Reds come in April 8 so we will get some of those then and will have to keep them separate for a while so the older ones don't pick on the younger ones...hence the term "pecking order".