It's Sunday and an update on the chicks..

As promised here are some pictures of the "baby chicks" from the first week we got them till today. If you remember the story I posted back in March about the day old chick that became trapped under the 1 gallon water for over 16 hours, and lived to tell the story. We named her Crush, and here she is with the X above her head. We put a black dot on her head so we could tell her from the others.

The next month Crush is doing just fine, and a bit lighter in color so we can easily pick her out from the rest.

In May she is growing normally, and has forgiven me from setting the waterer down on top of her.

Jumping into July, this is the first time the "baby chicks" were brought together with the older hens at Steve's house in a bigger pen. There was some arguing but as of today they have seemed to know where everyones place is.

A couple shots of Crush as a young lady this morning. These hens are Rhode Island Reds and will be laying nice sized brown eggs.

Just this week we began getting our first eggs from these girls, and they are quite small at first. These eggs in the carton are from the chicks, and I put in an extra large egg on the right bottom for comparrison.
Hens lay their first egg of the day early in the morning, and then will lay 1 hour later each day until about the 6th or 7th day when it will be around 4PM. The next day they will skip laying, and then begin early again the next morning all over again. They also go through a "molt" mostly in the  Spring and early summer when they will get new feathers. At this time they can go for 5-6 weeks without laying. Thank goodness they don't all go through this at the same time. Another interesting fact some breeds of chickens desperately want to be mothers, and will decide to set on eggs for weeks at a time hoping to hatch them. At this time they will cease to lay also. You don't have to keep a rooster to have eggs, but you do have to keep a rooster with your flock if you want baby chicks. We have no roosters and therefor any of our hens that become "broody" aren't bringing in any egg money. Sometimes we will put them in a pen by themselves where there is no nest in which to set, until they give up and start laying again. This usually will take a few days.
OK, I've taken up too much of your time. Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. We did get more rain today, and the dried up grass is beginning to come to life again.