Another Newby

My wife and I recently surprised our 4 kids with 3 day-old Buff Orpingtons. A few days after Christmas a friend of ours hatched some eggs and we took their three Barred Rock chicks off of their hands.

They're all doing great so far - the kids and the chicks. We're anxious to find out which are hens and which are roosters, though. This is our first foray into raising chickens after having a couple of dogs, a cat, 2 iguanas, a bearded dragon, and several snakes over the years. We had been "petless" until a few weeks ago and the kids were bugging us about getting a dog, we decided to do them one better.

We'd been talking about chickens for a couple of months (unbeknownst to the kids) and decided to go for it.

We watch them grow every day and develop new behaviors and new feathers. It's been fun so far and are looking forward to what comes next.

One thing that has surprised me so far is how many people think it's cool. I figured we'd be laughed at - only one person has done that so far - my mother-in-law. Whaddya expect?  ;)

- Brett