Updates: Chicks, Apache and Rain

 

The Summer Chicks are now 1 week old and are growing fast. Their wings are mostly feathered out and they like to stretch them out and practice flying in short bursts.(To turn off the music, click on the circle with two lines in my playlist, on my right side-bar)

 

 

 

 

We started out with 30 chicks and unfortunately lost two within the first two days. The journey of being born and then traveling to our home must have been too stressful for those little sweeties. So we now have 28 chicks. I was worried about another chick that seemed to have sustained an injury to her left foot or was born that way.

She wasn’t able to walk without falling for the first 3-4 days and I had to pick her up and help her to drink and eat several times a day.

But now she has figured out how to work around her disability and gets around just as well as the other chicks. And all that special care I gave her during the first few days has made her a very tame, gentle and friendly chick, too.

 

With the amount of time we spend with the chicks, we’re beginning to learn about most of the chick’s personalities. We’ve discovered which chicks are the most shy, afraid and not as friendly and which are very curious, brave, sweet and tame.

Some chicks calm down the second you pick them up and then promptly fall asleep while you pet their head, while others do everything in their power to figure out how to get free of your hands.

 

So far the Silver-Laced Cochins are the most skittish and shy, while the Speckled Sussex and Ameracaunas are the most curious, calm and friendly.

The chicks are a lot of fun and we are really enjoying them.

Even Dobbie has become very attached to the chicks and wants to stay with them and watch them jump around and peep-peep. Maybe she thinks they are puppies?

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I’ve got some big plans for Apache and I this weekend, but I don’t want to say anything more so I won’t jinx it……

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Tuesday’s rain was the last bit of rain we had this week. Every day the storm clouds gather, but we only get a spattering of raindrops or nothing at all. The real fear is lightning strikes, which are causing more wildfires to burn in New Mexico. Just in the last two day, several more fires have started burning in the Lincoln National Forest and the Santa Fe National Forest. It’s so bad that the Santa Fe National Forest removed it’s partial closure of their lands and moved it up to a full closure. And even the State Parks, like Hyde State Park that my family camped in just a couple months ago, have closed, too. We can still see the smoke from the wildfires burning above Santa Fe and our friends who call Santa Fe home are suffering from the effects of thick smoke.

And the entire city of Los Alamos, where Los Alamos National Laboratories are located, evacuated just the other day, because of the extreme threat from the fast burning wildfire, which is also threatening the impressive cultural, natural and historical gem, Bandelier National Monument as well as one of New Mexico’s most beautiful natural resources, The Valles Caldera. It’s so sad.