Baby Animal Updates

Just shy of a month old, they have lost their baby chick cuteness.

It is Monday morning, so here's the latest picture of the chicks I bought at the Rural King three Mondays ago.  They are four times or more the size they were when I brought them home and they have their first feathers.

Yesterday my little heifer Bramble presented me with a calf a few days before I was expecting it.  I didn't have any 12% protein bagged feed on hand to give her and my feed store is always closed on Sunday so I decided to get some of the Rural King's 12% Sweet Feed.  I had read the label on it very carefully when I bought the chicks and could see no ingredients in the list that would cause me any concern. Still I wasn't happy that no one there could tell me more about the feed. But, Bramble needed some protein so off I went to the Rural King.

Six little Aracana pullets, very tiny compared to the first bunch at the same age.

To get to the bagged feed section in the Rural King you have to walk past the baby chick display.  Guess what? They had just that morning received a new shipment of baby chicks. And this time they had Buff Orppington's and Aracana's. 

I was planning to purchase a dozen Aracana's from McMurray's in April. They won't sell you less than a dozen at a time and they have to be shipped in April or May when the weather is warmer.  You need at least a dozen chicks in a box to keep them warm enough to ship.

I couldn't help myself. This time there were even some little chick carrying boxes attached to the display.  I bought six pullets - all Aracana, two bags of 12% Sweet Feed and a small bag of Nutrena Chick Starter.  Aracana's are from Peru. They look more like hawks than chickens and they lay different colored eggs.  I have one Aracana hen at present and she lays green eggs. I've had Aracanas in the past that laid pink or blue eggs.  They are suppose to be lower in cholesterol than traditional chicken eggs.

I managed to give Bramble about five pounds of the 12% Sweet Feed with out any of the other cows stealing from her. They finished the rest of the bag. 

It was going to rain last night and I worried about the calf getting wet; its best not to have calves rained on in the first couple of days and that's one of the reason I hate calving in March!   Bramble turned out to be a very good mother and dutifully brought the calf to the barn for the night. She was still in the barn this morning when I went out to check on them and give the herd some hay.  The calf seems to be doing well and Bramble has a nice udder with plenty of milk. She munched a little hay, then followed the herd out to the pasture.  The calf will get a little wet today, but not soaked.  She's a plucky little thing, staggering through the mud and muck, but keeping up very well with mama cow.