Sunday, May 3, 2009

Clearance Chicks

I love a good sale and find some of my best bargains from the clearance aisle. This week I stumbled upon a new (to me, at least) clearance deal. We went to the TSC store to look for chicken wire for the chicken coop Paul is building for the new chicks. The further into the store, the louder the peeping became. As it was our first time visiting this store, I was unaware that they would have chicks. Actually until just last week, I thought it was just a tractor store--I mean it's called Tractor Supply Company, right? We had to go look at the chicks. I would have been fine just looking, but they had chicks marked down to $1/each, and they were pullets! They had little tiny cute bundles of fluff at regular price (from $2-$3/each) but these guys were just a little older and a little less cute in comparison with those downy little bundles. And they had them priced at a dollar each. Normally over $3 for pullets (that's young hens--not roosters). How could I pass this deal up? It turned out I couldn't. We brought home another dozen...




They are very close in age to the chicks we hatched out, so we put them all in the same tote. Not sure what breed these new ones are, but most likely some kind of sex-link chicken. Meaning the females hatch one color and males another, making it really easy to tell apart chicks upon hatching. I've got one or two that are very light in color and hoping they aren't roosters, but time will tell. As to the older chicks, we are watching them closely for clues to gender since they were purchased as straight run. Barred rock pullets supposedly have a smaller white dot on their heads and darker legs, so we used that to pick them out. But we knew this wasn't 100% accurate and it appears we have a rooster in the bunch. His comb is getting red and his wattles are visible and red. Plus his barring (stripes) are much more apparent than the other three which is apparently a sign of rooster-ishness. (That's a word, right?) But that's not too bad considering straight run is 50/50 roosters to hens. So it looks like we have 3 hens and 1 rooster on the Barred Rocks. The Rhode Island Reds look like they are probably 2 and 2. But we didn't have any sort of way to tell them apart and we wanted roosters from those.

It's still hard to tell on the banties and the chicks we hatched out. We're thinking the little tiny black banty is a girlie. Up in the air on the others and waiting a bit long for more signs to become obvious. The ones we hatched are about a week to week and a half younger than the original ones we bought. They do tons of growing week to week. So there is huge disparity in sizes.

I will be doing my best to stay away from feed stores with chicks now. We have 29 chicks in our laundry room! The constant chorus of peeping is kind of cute, though. And it's so fun watching them grow. Once they are outside, though, all bets are off again! I'm really itching to give the incubator another run, and I'm thinking guineas.

4 comments:

brokenteepee May 3, 2009 at 12:38 PM  

Heh heh. We have 52....that's lots of peeps.
Maybe you know what our little grey guy is...would you mind coming and taking a look? We have been looking a chick photos in guide books for days and can't figure him out.

Anonymous May 3, 2009 at 7:09 PM  

Very cute,they look alittle like Buffs Orps.Good score on the $1 chicks;)Mine are hatching now,we have 5 inside so far..

Leasmom May 4, 2009 at 6:47 PM  

Awwwlll...I miss having chickens. They are cuties.

♥SWEDSTRALIA♥ May 20, 2009 at 5:40 AM  

Hey!
What a nice blog, i've lived in the countryside in Sweden all my life and now im living together with my australian partner in Sweden. I will follow your blog with happiness. Thank you / Ida

About This Blogger

I am a thirty-something mother of two girls and a boy ranging from preschool to middle school. My husband and I keep working and reworking on our goal of raising our family healthier. Our house is a constant work under construction--adding on and remodeling. We're happy to have bought our property a few years ago, but as any homeowners know, owning a home just adds to your list of projects and chores because there's always improvements to be made and maintenance to be done. On our burgeoning homestead, we have chickens, guineas, a few goats, and our most recent additions-rabbits.
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I picked the name Petalz and Finz a couple years ago when I decided to try Etsy out. I wanted to custom make some baby related items and have things for girls and boys. I felt the name incorporated both my kids (at the time) into it--petalz for Ivy and finz for Finn.

I haven't had time to do much of anything with my Etsy for a while, but it's still my in my long term goals. In the mean time, I'm having fun with this blog thing. I've found some creative inspiration through my own posting, but also through many other wonderful blogs out there.
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