Baby chicks.... and rain. Rain!

Did you know that when chicks are just a few days old, there is virtually no way to tell if they will grow up to be roosters or hens? Unless, of course, you know what you're doing and are able to "sex-test" the chicks. My husband and I have not been educated in that sort of chicken-science, so we will have to leave it to the professionals.

Our friends K & B called this evening, to ask how we were doing and catch up with the latest news. I told her about the progress on turning the dog pen into a chicken coop, and she was excited about that. (It was K's idea in the first place to make the dog-pen into the chicken coop.) I told her about the names I've picked out for my three chicks (Dolly, Edie, and Jaye), and the names my husband suggested for his three (Over Easy, Country Fried, and Extra Crispy), which of course made her laugh so hard she was nearly crying.

I told K that we would order the chicks from the local feed store and her first question was "Are they going to sex-test them for you?" Pardon me? Are they going to what?! Then she explained that if we just place an order for six baby chicks, we could end up with 3 roosters and 3 hens, or 4 roosters and 2 hens, or (worse) 6 roosters. "Unless, that is, you specifically tell them to sex-test them for you." Every day, another lesson.

Of course, neither my husband nor I thought of that. We just figured that when you order half a dozen baby chicks because you want to raise hens that will lay eggs in a cute little chicken coop, you will get six baby chicks who will mature into six hens. I thanked K and told her that when we go to the feed store to order the chicks, we won't sound like two city-people who don't know which feather is up.

Speaking of cute chicken coops, our chicks should be very pleased with the coop when I'm done decorating it. I have found wonderful chicken coop decor at the local thrift/resale shop, for such a little amount of money. On the wall about the nesting boxes, I will hang a pretty picture of two nesting hens, which has been framed with wood and then boxed with chicken wire-- it looks like a shadow-box. Very nicely hand-made and probably had been hanging up in a farm kitchen.

Being that our vintage nesting box has four individual spots, I had to get creative with accommodations for two additional chickens. With that in mind, I bought a child-sized wooden chair that has chicken wire across the back slats...... I intend to hang that up on the wall near the nesting boxes, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of my chickens claims that as its nest. I also found an old wood bread box, with the word BAKERY painted on the front of it. When you open the door, it slants downward, which is perfect because chickens like to walk up an inclined surface to their nests...... I can put some hay into the wooden bread box and it will be a comfy nest for one lucky little chicken. (The chickens can't read anyway, so I will tell them that B-A-K-E-R-Y spells nesting box.)

Another thrift-shop treasure is a wooden two-tier shelf that hangs on the wall.... and that will be hung up in the coop as well. The shelves are wide enough to hold a chicken, and long enough to hold more than one. The whole thing has flowers carved into the wood, and it's all painted pink. (Pink. For girls-- as in hens, not roosters.)

I really have to quit going into that thrift shop (not likely). That store is an on-going, six-day-a-week yard sale, all indoors and air-conditioned, and as fast as the workers bring out the items, they go flying off the shelves. I would swear that the antique dealers in the area also shop in there, searching for inexpensive treasures that they can mark up and put into the antique co-ops in town. I have found shabby-chic decorative items for the guest cottage, and Texas-farm things for the guest rooms above the barn. And just when my husband thought I had nothing else to decorate, he decided to build the chicken coop. We will have the cutest coop in the hills.


Wonder of wonders....... we had two rain showers here in less than 24 hours. It poured late last night, after midnight, and the grass was soaking wet this morning and there were puddles in the road. Real puddles! With water and everything! (You laugh, but we haven't seen anything like that here since the beginning of May.) This afternoon, we had another good soaking shower, which brought more puddles-- but those quickly dried up when the sun came out after the rain quit and the temperature seemed to soar to 158 degrees. No complaints, though..... at least we had some rain.