Farms collect critters

This week, in addition to about 24,000 bees that came to the farm, we also collected nine young chicks.  These were classroom projects for elementary schools sponsored by the U of IL extension service.  Probably the eggs were hatched in an incubator and the school children took care of them for a week or two, a great project to do with kids of any age.  Then at some point, the teacher is eager to find a permanent home for the chicks, preferably on a farm.  Kenji's friend had inherited 30 of them and I said we'd take 5 or 6 off his hands so of course we got 9.  That's just the way it works.  Half are probably cockerels so we may end up with 4 or 5 hens if we're lucky. They are all healthy chicks and I suspect it's because these are the ones that survived being loved by small children.  Some of them have unusual marks and colors on them - I think the children might have used markers to claim certain ones as their own.  At any rate, it's fun to have chicks on the farm again.  I dug around in one of the buildings and found our sheep watering tank which is a perfect habitat for little chicks, set it up on saw horses in the barn near a bright window and hung a heat lamp over it.  I go out to the barn several times a day to check on them.  They are feathering out and we'll discover what breed and gender these mystery chicks are.  If you're going to collect critters, at least chickens are a useful thing to collect.