The chicks arrived today. They came from the Murray Mcmurray Hatchery. The post office dropped the box of chicks off on my porch and my father-in-law, Kumar, brought them inside, out of the cold I guess. However, I have two cats…not sure what happened while I was away but they chicks seemed to have made it.

Kumar also expressed being really glad that I showed up when I did because they were making so much noise they were clearly hungry. He was worried about how he was going to feed them and water them. I am really glad I showed up when I did too.

The chicks got moved to their brand new hut and I discovered there was too much straw. Wings and legs were getting entangled and the chicks were face planting. I also discovered handling four chicks is very different from handling twenty-five. Some of them are really fast runners already. One chick, I believe the Buff Laced Polish somehow made it out of the hut when I opened the door. This chick also was the first to figure out the water and food source. I try not to get attached in the beginning, chicks are very fragile and tend to have a high mortality rate, but I like this one already!

We have a total of seven breeds in the batch. 12 Cuckoo Maran; 5 Rose Comb Brown Leghorn; 4 Single Comb Brown Leghorn; 1 Buttercup; 1 Lakenvelder; 1 Blue Andalusian; 1 Buffed Laced Polish (pictured left). I can only identify the Marans and the Polish at this point.

Everybody else is just a brownish fuzz ball.

A few of the chicks seemed really small and out of it. In fact their eyes weren’t even open. These must be the youngest. They had no chance to make their way to the food. They could not even rest quietly without the other chicks stepping on them. So I removed the chicks that appeared too young. I placed them in a box inside the house for warmth, protection, and surveillance. Things began going awry a few hours in. One chick already fell in the water. The stress of being newborn, transported cross country in a box and handled seemed to have caught up with a few others. I pointed this fact of life out to Dipak and he was quiet disturbed by what he called the “attrition” of a clutch of chicks. The chicks in the hut currently have a heat lamp and tarp around the hut to protect against the wind. Tomorrow will reveal the sturdier of the clutch.