Project 1 - Raising Chickens

It has always been a goal of mine since we started having children to raise chickens. This week was the week that we started fulfilling that goal. We set out on Monday to buy us some baby chicks. The children had to earn a certain number of "Daddy Bucks" to buy their baby chick and they all worked hard to accomplish the goal. We bought four chicks, one for each child, a feeder, water dispenser, and food all for $6. It sounds cheap, but the locals buy these chicks for their meat. It will take 45 days until they are ready to cook and eat. So $6 for four chickens that you could just buy at the corner for $12 cooked and ready to eat. We are not buying these chicks to save money, but they are like the text books for our chicken raising class.

We did try to get female chicks, which is almost impossible to determine. The workers at the store didn't even know how to tell. I did some research earlier on the internet and found a way to determine the sex by the pattern of their feathers. Based on the merits of my chicken degree that I earned from watching YouTube videos, I believe that we purchased three females and one male. Ashton's was the male and he really wanted that one. We did tell the children that if we do get a male that we will need to eat him for dinner, because we don't want to disturb our neighbors like they disturb us with their 8 dogs and 6 roosters :) .

Here are some pictures:
The chick above is Jonah's, her name is Mario. Jonah named her Mario most likely after the Mario character in Mario Kart. She is the strongest of the chicks that we got, and probably a few days older then the rest.

The chick above is Savannah's chick which is still unnamed. She is a "Native Chicken" meaning that her breed was originated here in the Philippines. Chicken production is very popular in the Philippines. Most commercial chicks are like Mario, hyprids as they call them here. The native chicken is the one that most of the locals recommend because they are hardy and strong, but do not grow too fat for eatting. They are suppose to be good egg layers - so we are told.

Above & below are pictures of all four as they stomp and poop on their food.


This little guy below is Tweety and is Ashton's bird. He is the smallest and weakest of the bunch. Right when we got the chicks home we set up their place to live. Jonah reached in the pen and dumped the water all over. Most of the chicks got soaked. Even though it was 85 degress outside these little chicks were freezing as they are suppose to maintain a temperature of 85 - 95 degrees during their first two weeks. I got a hot towell and wrapped this little guy in it for a few hours, because I was afraid that he wasn't going to make it. Unfortunately, Tweety did not make it through the night and slept his way into chicken heaven. It was a sad morning for all of us, but also a good lesson to be learned.

Cyrus's chick also had a fatal accident - Cyrus. Cyrus got a good hold of him this morning and almost squished him to death. I maybe was the catalyst for the accident as I tried to get him to put the bird down, but that only made Cyrus squeeze harder. The little native chicken was shaken up for several hours, but I think he will pull through. We thought of calling Cyrus's chick Lenny.

The chicks should be ready to lay eggs in 6 -7 months. This is further out then we would like, so after I build a chicken coop, we are going to buy two chickens that are egg laying ready, to finish off our chicken family. We hope that the children will learn to care for the chicks and also take the responsibility of gathering the eggs. In addition, we hope they learn self reliance with each new project we take on here in the Philippines.

*Composed by Rich