Counting your Chickens After They Hatch

In the realm of our chicken adventures, I last left off at receiving our chicks via snail-mail.

Since that day, we've had epic failures but also overall success with our flock, which led us to "expanding" it the following spring... sound a bit vague? Probably because there are too many details to cover in an introductory sentence or two.

And away we go.
When our first batch of chicks arrived I was away on a business trip (I believe this was mid-April). This was a complication for obvious reasons, but I'll cover a few of them anyway. First off, the deal between John and I was that the chickens were MY deal, MY responsibility. He didn't want to get stuck doing all the work and worrying about these creatures that I insisted on obtaining... no matter how interesting and productive they were. This was the deal when he agreed that backyard chickening would in-fact occur. I thought it was a fair deal. The guy takes care of a lot around our house, I could understand why he wouldn't want to be saddled with one more thing. Deal.

So it was ON. I placed my order for chicks, and in doing so learned that the heritage breed that I'd been dreaming of (Delawares) were fairly rare, frequently back-ordered, and often unavailable. The only available date that would ensure them to get to our house as spring chickens would be to order them for an arrival date where I would be out of town on a business trip. After many guilty feelings and apologies, I asked John to receive the chicks and was terrified that the tiny little babies would be left on our doorstep in the cold and he would come home from work to find a box of chick-cicles.

My worries were unfounded, as it turned out. Also, my appreciation for the USPS was raised 10-fold. They handled the handling of our package wonderfully and were great about notifying us when the package arrived in not only a friendly but easy manner. John was able to retrieve them without any hassle and nursed them for their first week while I was away.

I didn't get to be there to see our next package of chick opened this year either (we hosted an order for 3 households). On both occasions John has been around to receive the box, for which I am thankful, but I am still intrigued to experience that first moment when you open your long anticipated box of chicks. It might not happen for me any time soon... our coop is full up.

Now, once you have a bunch of new chicks in your house, you are faced with a very real task... how will I house them and keep them safe, healthy, and happy?