Easter Surprises Thu, Apr 05, 2018

Last Sunday was a pretty long day! I had spent the morning rushing to make the dog kennel, that i'd been building, usable. It all came together just in time and I was relieved to mark another move-in task off my workload. 

Fast forward to my grandfathers house. Some of my extended family came down to spend time with us. I was chatting with my great aunt in the living room when I heard a load of screaming. It was my children ... and they were freaking out because they were given fuzzy baby chickens. Without me knowing ANYTHING about this, my family IN THEIR INFINITE WISDOM decided to gift my children with those two baby Houdan chicks. By the time I reached them .... it was already too late. My children and my partner were hooked by the little devils. 

1: Buying baby animals as holiday gifts is in my top 50 things that shouldn't be done. 

2: This meant I was going to have to build another freaking animal cage. 

While the chicks were resting in a spare bedroom, I noticed that one of them was acting a bit odd. We took them both home and set them up in my garage with everything they need (i did a lot of googling). Unfortunately, the odd chick didn't do so well. I held the little guy as he passed away. Horrible right? Well, not really, that's just life. Growing up on a ranch, you get used to animals coming and going. Horrible is having to explain to my young children the nature of life and death on a holiday.

In the end, I decided to make the best of the situation. I LOVE animals, and I still had a healthy baby chick to take care of. I couldn't justify raising him alone (chickens are social animals). My partner and I decided to go all out. We went and purchased two rhode island red chicks so our little guy wouldn't be lonely and I got to work planning out their new home. 

The little Houdan chick also started displaying similar odd behaviors like the one that had passed. As such, I've spent the last two sleepless nights monitoring him. I'm happy to report that so far we are good. He's eating, drinking, doing chicken stuff, and terrorizing the other chicks. Not sure what to call him yet, but little buddy will have to do for now. 

I never wanted bloody chickens. I don't even like eating eggs. But i'll turn it into a good situation and love the heck out of 'em anyways.