squee! my new batch of chicks arrived from Murray McMurray this morning!
Mixed batch of 25 rare/unusuals, all bantam sized.
Fabulous chicks.
I want some. I’ve been thinking about chickens lately, but we just moved to southern Maine, and I worry about how this whole thing might work in winter. Are you forever shoveling snow and de-icing waterers and freezing your ass of for the sake of your hens? Or is it not so bad?
My goodness, a box full of fluff! I can’t imagine the cacophony of peeping sounds that must be coming from it.
all I could think was “Peep! Peep!”
Well we are in the ass end of nowhere connecticut, and a microscopially bit balmier thanks to the ocean. we have an electrical warming base for the big galvanized waterer thing we use, so it stays liquid and above freezing. We don’t really bother shoveling, they are perfectly happy to scratch around in the snow, and under the cars. We actually have not been having snow stick around down here more than a few days to a week for the past 15 years. When it is bitterly cold, we put an incandescent light in to add some heat, and they do fine.
I say go for it, get cochins r silkies, they have feathers on their legs and feets =)
I read an excerpt from Birdology recently and loved it. It made me want chickens. You re so lucky!
My girls (fingers crossed) are about 8 weeks old. They grow up so fast! A couple already had feathers coming in when I got them at two days old.
Oh man. We are so getting chooks one day, when we have a proper backyard. I also have plans for a brick pizza/bread oven, a massive grill, a rotary clothes line, lots of fruit trees…
Enjoy your chickies!
Thanks =)
We keep chooks for eggs and meat, and the fun of watching them. We also feed the occasional one to the mated pair of eagles living in our woods - but we don’t really begrudge them the occasional chook =) It is way nifty having the eagles living here. I just wish their nest was in a position we could get a dependable webcam on it.
I would have to admit, chickens can actually make pretty fun pets. For about 5 years, the lead rooster in our flock, Cogburn was quite a character. Our roomie hand raised him, so he would follow her around like a puppy. A kitten appeared in the coop one morning [we suppliment the food with cat kibble for the protein] and peacefully coexisted with Cogburn so we named him General Sterling Price. [she finally managed to catch General Price and get him to the vet and shots and spayed, and he now is a pampered pet =) ]
PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPS!!
[ahem]
What cuties!
Those birdies must be loud! I’ve only ever had one chick at a time and the silly things never shut up. My last chickie followed me around the house all the time, it was the cutest thing.
How does this work…a company mailed (or otherwise had delivered to you) a box of live birds? a box of eggs ready to hatch?
Live, I assume. My husband is a letter carrier and told me the story of a box that wasn’t properly secured. He was sorting mail before going out on his route and heard some noise around his feet. Three ducklings were there, looking around. He scooped them up as he heard other people around the office exclaiming loudly about their finds as well. They tracked down the escapees and put them back in the box, then patched it up.
Wow. They must be pretty hardy little critters, relatively speaking. How do they get food/water in transit?
Right before they hatch, birds will absorb what remains of the nutrients in the egg. That gives them enough nutrients and water to last for at least 48 hrs. Conveniently, that allows baby birds to be shipped the day they are hatched.
The only real concern is keeping them warm enough. Most hatcheries have a lower limit for the number of chicks they will ship in one box; more bodies=more warmth. Most hatcheries also include some kind of heating element, like a hand warmer packet.
ETA: But they do come out of the box pretty ravenous. I was amazed at how much my 4 chicks ate that first night.
They also tend to be sent with overnight shipping or 2-day at most, I think, and with special “live freight” tags so it gets special handling and tracking.
Awwww!
When we get a place with a yard, we want to get a pair of cochin bantams. Used to live next door to a couple, and they were just the sweetest things!
Fortunately we’ll likely be living in a mostly-Latino neighborhood at that time, and they won’t complain so much about chicken noises…not at all uncommon for Mexican families to keep a couple birds for eggs or food (or fighting 
)
My peeps were actually hand delivered early this morning by our posthuman Mary in a special trip [she and my roomie are friends so we got a bit special treatment]
As was mentioned upstream, they hatch and are good for 48 hours, and arrive ready to eat us out of house and home, the little buggers can eat their body weight in 24 hours for about the first 3 weeks or so. As soon as they arrive, you pop them into their new home and make sure they have a heat lamp, water laced with vitamins, minerals and extra protein, and chick mash [finely ground grains] that you mix a bit of crushed oyster shells and sand. They need the grit to aid digestion, and the shell for calcium to make sure they have good strong bones - they decalcify when laying eggs, and fortifying bone growth from the beginning helps a lot.
Our brooding box is actually an old picnic cooler that has a heat lamp with an incandescent bulb to generate heat. The cooler has walls high enough to keep the peeps in, and retain warmth. Of course if one of the hens is broody we let her brood the eggs and chicks, but not purchased chicks. We put shavings down for them to walk about upon, and make it easy to clean up spills and chicken shit. They have a little waterer, and a little feeder. We will handle them and play with them to get them used to being handled. Makes it easier to catch them for vetting or eating =) We lay a screen across the top to keep the cat from shopping for chicken nuggets :eek:
Awww, They are cute! I used to have White Rock Hens but never had a Rooster. I love the Bantums. 
I am SO friggin’ jealous right now. I just have to tell you that.
There are chickens in the future of the Horseshoe household, so I’m always happy to read about other people’s experiences. The shipping of live, fragile-looking little fluffballs weirds me out, though. Have you ever had problems with the shipping? Like, chicks arriving with a broken leg or something like that?