Another Conundrum

I was going to write about something very serious tonight, but it is so cold here in Tongie right now that I have had to turn the furnace on again, and I've left it til late to post, so it will be short and sweet. 

I had planned to move the bigger (standard) breed chicks out of their water tank quarters tonight, and into the little henhouse, so that they would wake up in the morning and the other birds not be freaked out.  However, it was so chilly when I got home, and we are now expecting rain for days in a row, that they are going to have to stand their tight quarters for a few more days.  The temps are supposed to come up, so I may try it. 

Once they are moved, the banties can be separated and moved half and half in the two horse tanks in the shop, because they are also getting big. 

And then, of course, I lost my mind when I stopped in the feed store tonight, they had some pullets from Cackle Hatchery there, and somehow, three more came home with me.  They are in with the porcelains in the nursing cage, locked up tight against the snakes. They are supposedly three americaunas but let's just call them two Easter Eggers and what looks like a barred rock pullet.  I let the clerk pick, as I could not bear to look at the ducklings in their box.  So that makes.....28 new chicks Mary Ann has bought, plus the 12 year-olds bought earlier.  Yes, folks, the chicken population is growing exponentially, and I am going to be buried in eggs soon.  Maybe Keith won't notice..... (faintly hoping).......

This weather is also delaying garden work, because it's just too cold to get out there for long... and I've had to unpack the sweatshirts for about the third time.  Crazy weather!

These are the Welsummer and Partridge Rock birds in their tank.  They are almost too big for it, this perspective does not show how big they really are, they are at least twice the size of the bantams.

There are seven of these big birds.

Three more cockerels in this picture of the little guys.  The brown one whose back you can see is one of two Brassy Back Old English gamebirds. 

That's a Mille Fleur on the left, but they are not coloring out as nicely as I had hoped.  There are a cockerel and I think two pullets in the batch.  Once I went to a swap near here (but many years ago) where a guy had a huge tub of Mille Fleurs... and I asked him why he had so many... they were all of his culls!  One of the most agressive roosters I have ever had was a Mille Fleur.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can get the bigger chicks out of the shop and into the little henhouse.  They will probably stay there while all the laying hens move into the new henhouse.