The Chicks Are Here!

The Post Office called at 6:15 this morning to tell us that our chicks had just come in.  Yay!  They are so cute and we are so excited.  All 27 survived the trip so far and they all appear to be eating, drinking and moving around quite well.  There’s one little one that I’m particularly worried about but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.  I think I can be a grownup about when one of them dies.  Here’s hoping anyway :)

Here’s the box they came in.  They were shipped on Saturday and chicks live on their yolk reserve for 2-3 days without eating or drinking.  Makes sense when you realize that a hen lays 1 egg every 25 hours, so to lay a clutch to hatch takes several days.  The first ones out need to be able to survive until the hen is done sitting on the unhatched eggs.

I took them out one at a time, dipped their beaks into the water and made sure they took a drink.  (I was worried how I would possibly know if they had drank or not, but fortunately, it’s obvious.)  Then put them out in their brooder, under the heat lamp.  The heat lamp makes it about 95 degrees, which is just where they like it right now.  I had food scattered on the paper towels to get them started and they just fell right to it.

Here they are under the heat lamp when they first arrived.  They’ve since spread out around the whole enclosure so I think they temperature is about right.  The lamp is red so it makes the picture a bit funky, but that discourages them picking on each other.

And here’s some peeping for your Monday morning.  :)