The Chicks Have Arrived

The chicks have arrived! I finally got to bed around 6am after working on that file upload all night, and drifted off to sleep around 6:20 -- just in time for my cell phone to ring at 6:30. I jumped up and answered assuming it was work calling about the failed upload, but it was the post office letting me know the chickens have arrived. I rolled over andwent back to sleep for a few hours, then picked them up around lunch time. One had died in transit, but there were still 26 birds in there, so they must have put in 2 extra instead of just the one extra. We got 5 Buff Orpington roosters, 20 Rhode Island Red straight-run (as they hatch, no sexing), plus the one "exotic" chick Murray McMurray throws in for free. It is black with a stripe, so not sure what kind it is yet. Looking through the catalog it could be any number of breeds -- we'll see once it gets bigger.

We have our old kiddie pool set up in the back living room for them right now. We got the starter kit from Murray McMurray that has the cardboard draft shield, brooder lamp and red heat bulb, thermometer, 2 waterers, and 2 feeders. It seemed like a good deal versus buying all the individual pieces separately.

Right now our house if full of the CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP of 26 baby chickens. The girls think they are so cute and wanted to know what we would name them. Our answer of course NO NAMES, these are LIVESTOCK not PETS!

The dog on the other hand is a pet, she will have a name (Lexi -- we picked her out last night, and get to bring her home in a few more weeks) -- we won't eat the dog! Try to explain that to a 2 and 3 year old and it suddenly becomes clear how arbitrary the whole thing is -- how certain animals can share our homes as pets (dogs, cats, guinea pigs), other animals get killed for sharing our homes without asking (mice, rats, moles), and other animals get raised solely to eat (chickens, cows, pigs).