On the Urban Homestead...

...we have chickens!

Let me introduce you to:

L-R: Sally (Ameraucana), Emily (Rhode Island Red),
and Madeline (Buff Orpington)

The older kids each named one of them.  =)

The food and water dishes use mason jars!
Just my style!  =)

Having chickens is so exciting to me!  I have wanted to get some for a long time, and we are having lots of fun with them!  We got our chicks at about two weeks old, and they are absolutely adorable!  In just a week, they have grown a lot.  They really all do have their own personalities, which is so fun!  Sally is the bossy one, and also the most aloof, while Emily is really friendly and doesn't mind being held, unlike the other two.  They really like doing everything together.  If one of them starts eating food, the rest of them do, too.  Cleaning and refilling their water dish just takes a couple of minutes, but when I put it back, they all rush over and start drinking like they haven't had any water all day.  It's so cute!

So far the work has been very minimal.  The most time consuming job was cleaning out their water dish, which I was having to do quite a few times a day because they kept filling it up with pine shavings when they would scratch in the litter.  But then I got smart and raised the dish up a bit on a brick, and now it stays clean for most of the day.

The chickens love to sit on top of the jars.
Sometimes they fight over the spot!

We'll have to keep them inside for about five more weeks, during which time we need to build a coop and run outside.  Then, hopefully sometime this fall, we'll have eggs!  I can't wait!