Monday, April 30, 2007

pround owners of barred (plymouth) rock chicks

Paid a visit to Half Moon Bay Feed & Fuel today and came home with two Barred Rock chicks, and I paid $3.99 per pullet. I'd hoped to go in and pick up a New Hampshire Red as well, but they had none. I could have gotten a White Rhode Island chick (think Foghorn Leghorn coloring), but I wanted something a little more colorful to look at. The Barred Rock chicks all have emerging gold blazes on the crest of their heads, and I spent about 20 minutes picking (the best) two of the seven chicks available.

Each of the little girls is a little over a week old, which means they were likely born on Earth Day last week (how fitting). They came from the Belt Hatchery, which is not too far from the Bay Area, and I see from the retail price list at Belt that I paid a little over $2 premium per chick. The premium was fine with me since I didn't have to buy 25 chicks at once (like I would have had I bought them direct from Belt).

Also in my basket today? an infrared heat lamp and bulb as well as 5 pounds of chick starter crumb. I'd gone to Petco earlier in the day to buy a 10 gallon fish tank and "critter keeper" mesh top for the tank. So, all told, I spent $40 today to bring the chicks home to a home of their own.



So, after two and a half months of "planning" to get chicks, we've finally got some. Not named yet, but that'll come as we get to know their personalities.

For now, we've got two chicks resting comfortably under the glow of the heat lamp, and I'll be changing their papers in the morning.

3 comments:

Danville- One Wish said...

Howdy :) we just adopted three barred plymouth rock chicks, they are ten days old but we won't know their sex yet till they are a little older

Unknown said...

Hooray! that's great news. Boy, your chicks are going to go through a huge change in appearance over the next couple months, but imho, Plymouth Rocks are the most beautiful chickens of all. Welcome to the urban chicken movement!

Unknown said...

I have 2 barred rocks myself, 1 male, Dublin and a female, Derry. I got them from a friend who has a farm when they were 2 days olds. They are about 3 months now and beautiful. Dublin started to crow this week and wakes us up every morning at about 6:30am to go outside, they live in a jumbo pet carrier in our living room right now until my husband can build a coup in the yard.

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