Yesterday was Mother's Day and as of now, I'm starting to feel like Momma McHen. After a discussion with my daughter about trying to keep track of of the chicks' development, I decided to color code the four chicks with a dot of food coloring on each of their breasts; red, yellow, blue and green. We had decided to not name them, but at this point, the color is being used to identify each of them, as in, "Which one are you holding?" "Yellow." I can basically guess which ones are yellow or blue, because they have more white in their new wings. Green and red have a more mottled appearance in their wings.
Some of my g-kids came over to admire the new chicks on Mother's Day. Actually, the whole "group" came to cook me up a delicious barbeque dinner and have a slice of Mom's Day cake. That was nice and it was fun to watch the excitement in the eyes of the young ones as they hovered over the brooder. There was no holding of the chicks while the kids were here so that there was no expectations by the kids that they would also get to hold them. The chicks were actually able to take their "usual" naps through the whole din of the family gathering.
Speaking of naps, I didn't realize that baby chicks like to sleep "sprawled" on their tummies. When they first started doing this, I thought they were sick or something. Their little necks are all stretched out and their wings poke out from their sides, and in some instances, they even stretch out their legs, like they're "planking" ;) And they sure do sleep a lot. Their little cycle is on hyper mode compared to human babies. The process of eat, drink, poop and sleep seems to be completed in less than 10 minutes. Another thing that I find interesting is that the chicks have absolutely no qualm in stepping on or standing on another chick who just so happens to be sleeping! Yeesh!
