Where're My Peeps?

My boys are no stranger to responding to "the pet question".  "Do you have any pets?" "Yes. Bees and worms." -CJ or "No." -EMan.  Yes, we do keep bees.  We have one hive that's been around since spring of 2013 and a second hive in the works to be populated starting spring 2014.  Yes, we do keep worms.  Composting worms.  In a bucket.  They live in the garage.  Though many wouldn't consider these pets, we're not real traditional pet people.  Along those lines was a surprise for the boys yesterday morning.  First they needed to wash out their sandbox toy tub.  It had to do with their surprise.  Then we gave them a couple of books.  Which is funny, because earlier in the day EMan said, "Is our surprise books?" with genuine excitement in his voice.  They started flipping through the books and CJ was (once again, genuinely) excited.  "I love science stuff!"  It took a little prompting for them to figure out that there was more to this surprise then a couple of books.  Their hint: the titles: "Mommy, Me and My Chickens" and "Young Chicken Farmers".  Both highly recommended books for preschool-elementary school kids about taking care of chickens.  Daddy read both of the books to them while I anxiously awaited them to be done so we could move on to the next portion. 

 Conveniently, Chick Days is going on right now at our local farm and ranch store.  It's practically a walk in, walk out process.  They had 3 types of pullets (baby hens) available and the boys got to pick two each as their very own pets.

 Once we got home with the cheapest pet and supplies on the market (about $80 spent on everything to get them to where they can live outside) we got to work assembling our brooder.  We did discover very shortly that an upgrade in box size is necessary in the next couple of days.  The water and food containers take up too much space.

 The chicks had nearly 4 hours of love before the boys were off to a play date at a friends house for the evening.  They (the chicks) were so tired after that much love!

 I had made these shirts for the boys with the intent that they could color the chick to match the color(s) of the chicks that were their own pets.  CJ did color his (half yellow, half brown) to represent his two chicks.  EMan just liked to color it.  It was fun to snap these couple pictures of them in their shirts.  Hopefully in a few weeks the chicks will be comfortable with their new "people" and can go outside in the warm daytime air.  Then I can get pictures of the boys in their shirts with the chicks.  I love them! Where're my peeps?