First babies of the year!

This year I was taking a big step and ordering birds from a hatchery. I wanted more variety  than my usual feed stores had, and I wanted a lot more birds. I spent the winter researching and deciding on the birds  I wanted and the best hatchery  for my order. Never having ordered from a hatchery before I order a little later in the spring and had to wait a month and a half for my babies to arrive (stupid Easter messed up my order)... I couldn't wait till the end of May, I had chick fever now!

 As always our local Wilco store had baby chicks. I planned on getting a few silkie chicks, not only to tide me over until my big order of chicks arrived but I also hadn't ordered any from the hatchery and wanted some for their broody qualities (they make great mamas). I didn't order them through the hatchery because they had a 5 chick minimum per breed/color,  and I didn't want 5 slikies, let alone all the same color.

What I planned  to do and what happened  weren't the same thing... I think my brain goes crazy when presented with something cute and fluffy.

I ended up with 3 silkies, and 6 Copper Marans.

Copper Marans are a French breed of chicken that lay some of the darkest brown eggs. The hatchery I ordered chicks from bred Black Copper Marans, but had sold out before I made my order (another side effect of ordering late). I was super excited that Wilco had some, not only did they have the more common Black Copper Marans but they also had Blue, Splash, and Wheaton Marans. The difference is their plumage color, they all should lay dark eggs. Both the Marans and the Silkies were sold as a straight run, so some of them could be boys, it was to be a waiting game, I had never gotten a straight run of chicks before, though I have gotten and rooster or two when ordered  just pullets!

The little fluff balls soon after bringing them home.

The tiny golden one (is a silkie, you see his/her butt in the photo) soon earned the name nugget, and became a favorite. These guys stayed in a small cardboard brooder in my office for a week before moving into a bigger brooder in the upstairs of the little house. I loved hearing them chirp and each of them took turns napping on my lap while I worked.

Starting to feather out! That's little ruby upfront. All but the small white one in the back are the Marans. Their colors were fun to watch grow out.

Some of the babies enjoying some freshly cut barley fodder, it was their favorite, and they would often hop onto my hand in anticipation to get the first bite.

Just before my hatchery chicks came, I moved these guys to another brooding area by my chicken coop, so I could clean up and make room for the new babies coming and get these guys used to being outside.

Before getting put in the moving box, each chick had a photo shoot. They are almost 4 weeks in these next photos.

Little Nugget is a gold silkie, still the tiniest but getting bigger by his/her own standards. Silkies are very hard to sex, even after all of my research it's pretty much if it lays an eggs its a girl, so my silkies are still a mystery, but I'm hoping that at least one is a hen!

This silkie is named badger, he/she is just a little bigger than nugget and is a blue silkie. Badger is also the shyest of the Silkies, preferring to watch me from a distance.

This white silkie is Valkyrie, Mr. beam named him/her and has deemed that Valkyrie is his, even taking him/her downstairs and watching TV. Valkyrie also likes to untie peoples shoe laces when they walk into the coop

Here's  Ruby all feathered out, she looks to be a Blue Maran. The lady at Wilco put her in my box because she was an unusual color for the chicks, she was a red brown color, and she wanted to know how she would turn out (and I liked giving her updates when I went shopping).

This one is Rita, she's also blue, but isn't as dark as ruby and had less brown on her head.

I named this one Trudy, she's a really pretty blue and gold color, I don't know if she's just a blue maran with a lot of brown/gold or if the wheaton color can look like this. I'm going to put her photos on a chicken forum and ask because I can't find any other hens like her on-line!

 This is Elsa, she's a very light grey color and she's a splash maran, she's one of the prettiest colors. For a while I called her Hans because I though she might be a boy, but she's a girl.

This was originally Betty, but at this age you can see that Betty is really a Burt. He is a Black Copper Maran and becoming the sweetest little rooster, he's also the boss of this little flock.

Last but not least, is Billy, a Splash Maran, and another Rooster! I loved watching his color change as a chick, I really like these Splash Marans.

So 2 out of 6 Marans ended up roosters. I'm happy with that, I'm actually planning on breeding these boys to some of my Easter Eggers to try getting some Olive eggers in the future.

The gang in the new night box, sorry about the flash, but this was the only picture that turned out.