Chicken Recess

Today we took our baby chicks outside for the first time. We transported them in our laundry basket with a towel over the top. (And yes, DH, they did poo in the bottom of it in transit.) I've since cleaned it up............we put our CLEAN laundry in this basket. Anyhow...........they were very cute. We have a dog kennel that our (spoiled) dog never uses so we put them there. We spread out our picnic blanket to sit on and watch them. At first, they were very unsure about exploring the grass. Instead, they wanted to sit on us. I told the boys that we are, essentially, their chicken mothers since they don't have a real chicken mother. They obviously felt very safe being near us in a new place.







Finally after we moved to the edge of the blanket and nearer to the grass, they felt more confident to explore. They were SO cute. They scratched and pecked. They hunted for bugs. Our most adventurous chick, Sarah, caught a big black ant. She took a bite and then wiped her beak back and forth on the grass as if she was trying to get the taste out of her mouth. It was really funny. Below you can see Abby (black with yellow spot on her head), Dixie (reddish brown) and Sarah. If you read this post and saw how they looked when we got them 8 days ago, you can see that they are already growing up and getting lots of wing and tail feathers.






Sarah got comfortable enough that she decided to take a nap on the picnic blanket.







My little boy is SO gentle with the chicks. He cupped his hands around Sarah (his chicken) and she closed her little eyes and dozed off for a while.






Here's the whole "flock" doing what chickens do.

There's my little firecracker chick, Dixie. Isn't she getting some beautiful wing feathers?

And there she is again, strutting around.

My little boy decided to pull his shirt over his knees and make a little "tent" for the chicks. At one point, four of the five were huddled under there as if he was their mother hen. It was darling. Below he is pushing one back into the "nest."

This is so cute............he stuck his head inside his shirt so he could peek at his little brood, huddled up under his shirt and legs.

And there's Clara peeking out of the nest.

At one point, I had all five babies roosting on my legs. They all independently hopped or flew into my lap. It was so awesome!