Chicks (The Easy Way)

For the past couple of years, we have incubated our own chicks from our own farm eggs.  And while that's fun, every once in a while we have to restock with new blood.  (This is Iowa, kissing cousins isn't legal!)  This morning, that "new blood" came in the mail.  Under normal circumstances with the kids I babysit, my kids and I wouldn't have been able to participate in going to the post office to pick the chicks up or getting them settled into their new home.  But due to the sickness going around here, the other kids weren't here today, Sarah finally woke up fever free this morning (yay!) and Caleb doesn't have any symptoms other than a runny nose, so we bundled up for a very quick trip to the post office.  (I will admit, I am an overprotective mama and probably dressed them WAY too warm, but better warm than sick again, right?)



Ready for the field trip.  You'd have to pry through many layers to get to any bare skin on these two!



What a cute little postmaster we have here! 
This is how our chicks arrive when we order them in the mail. They are hatched on day one, mailed over night, and arrive at the post office on day two.  Then the postmaster calls your mother-in-law early in the morning to tell HER to let YOU know that your chickies have arrived because the chick company put the wrong phone number on the mailing label even though you made a second call to the company to verify that your phone number had changed and you want to make sure that the current number is on the mailing label so the postmaster can call to verify that your chicks are at the post office the morning that they were scheduled to be!  (Breeeeeeathe....)




Caleb anxiously awaiting the grand openng of the box.




And this is how thirty two chicks can survive being shipped even though they are at the most twenty four hours old.  The hatchery has a minimum order rule to ensure that there are enough chicks to keep each other warm for the trip.  Then they just use an appropriate size box for the journeyers.




Caleb was a big help putting the chicks into their new home.  Of course, Josh or I could have, and would have, been done with it in about a quarter of the time it took Caleb, but remember... I dressed the kids super warm so it was perfectly okay that he was taking his time.




Admiring the new flock.

  

  

Sarah Rose and Joshua  (Sarah's the one in the pink pants). 




Look real close and if you're keen on your chicken breeds, you can see Black Australop, Production Reds, Gold Stars, Americanas, White Rocks, and Barred Rocks.  They all lay brown eggs except the Americanas...they lay Easter eggs all year long (blue, green and in betweens)!




One last pet before time to go in.