Chicks!

 

The coldest April I can remember in recent years, and this is the year I choose to have chicks shipped in April!  The first shipment arrived on Wednesday, April 10.  Fifteen chicks…7 Easter Eggers (green/blue eggs) and 8 Buff Laced Polish (lay small/med brown eggs).  They are as cute a the dickens!

In the above photo, the chick at the bottom is this huge fluff ball.  He/she is bigger than any of the other chicks…maybe it’s a day older or maybe it’s just the feathers.  Whatever the case, it’s darn cute.  The chick in the lower photo is a Polish chick.  They have this cute tuft of feathers on the top of their head…and they will as adults, too.

 

The second shipment of chicks arrived on Friday, April 12.  This shipment included 20 chicks total…10 California White Legorns, which will lay white eggs; 10 Welsummer (brown eggs) and 5 Speckled Sussex (brown eggs).  All the breeds are cold weather hardy and all except the Polish are Good to Excellent egg layers, meaning they’ll lay 250-300 eggs per year.

The chicks were a little scared and all crammed into the corner when I opened the shipping box.  Thankfully all arrived healthy and have remained healthy in these first few days.  I was worried about them this year because of the cool temps and because such a large number died during shipment last year.

We are keeping the chicks in the garage in a water tank.  We have to cover the tank when the garage doors are opened, but the house garage is warmer than any other building right now. 

Please let the May be warm.  We’d planned to move these chicks to move to the Wahoo in May because the broiler chicks will need the water tank when they first arrive!  The broilers ship the first week in May – that’s only three weeks.  Can all this snow be gone in three weeks??  I may be making a cardboard pen in the outside garage for the ‘laying’ chicks.  Argghhhh!  ND weather is crazy.