Hot Chicks!

Coming Home from the Post Office!

 

Here's Hannah peeking through the window into our La-Z-Boy Brooder!  We picked up our box of baby chicks from the Bishop Post Office yesterday.  The most important thing is to immediately get the chicks drinking, get them warmed up to about 90 degrees, and show them their food.

 

Our chick order showed up a day earlier than expected, but luckily we were ready for them.  Fendon's furniture in Bishop kindly donated an easy chair box, which we made into a fabulous brooder.  The chicks will be in the living room for the next few weeks, and we will gradually get them acclimated to the out of doors.

These chicks were hatched and packed on Wednesday, September 8.  We had one little girl who didn't make it along with one who appears to have a birth defect.  This chick has a leg that appears to be twisted the wrong way, and consequently she cannot stand.  She was nearly dead when the chicks arrived, as she was being trampled.  We have her separated from the others in the little box in the left of the photo.  We have been feeding her beef liver in the hope that the extra vitamins and protein will help to correct the problem.  Although the chick is doing much better today, we are not sure whether she will be able to survive or not, or whether she will figure out a way to get around.  In the meantime, she is getting most of the attention.  We have tentatively named her "Peanut".   

 

Our order included 10 Rhode Island Reds (great layers of brown eggs), 10 Easter Eggers (blue, green, and tinted eggs), five Dominiques (the oldest heritage breed developed in the U.S. - brown eggs), and five Speckled Sussex, a breed we have not yet tried.  The 28 healthy chicks are doing great and we plan to get them out to our clover and grass patch to get some greens and sunlight, weather permitting.