New Babies Came in the Mail Today

I ordered some replacement chicks from a hatchery to replace those laying hens that we lose every year to old age or tragedy.  They come from a hatchery over in Cameron, Texas.  I get an email that states, "Your day old chicks have shipped!" and in 48 hours we get a call early in the morning from the Post Office here in town, and they say something like, "You have a package and it's ALIVE!  Come pick it up!"

Tricia heads up to the post office and picks up the fragile package of live baby chicks.  They are chirping and lively.  The night before I got the brooder all set up in the garage with hay lining the bottom, two water containers filled and a heat lamp suspended over it.  As Tricia and Benjamin take each chick out, they dunk their little beaks in the water and they drink like a camel at an oasis!  Then, one by one, they are put in the brooder and a piece of newspaper is put out and chick starter is sprinkled on the newspaper.  Those little dudes/dudettes immediately start pecking and scratching and eating.  By 48 hours since hatching, the contents of the egg they were living on is long gone and they are HUNGRY!

Unboxing the chicks and into the brooder they go

They are bunched up in the bottom left below because that's where the waterers are, but other than that, they are distributed evenly across the brooder, indicating that the temperature is just right.  If they are all piled up on one another, you know it is too cold and you need to lower the heat lamp.

Nice Distribution of birds

So I ordered 25 Barred Rock Pullets.  These are some nice brown egg layers.  In addition to the 25 pullets, I ordered 4 Barred Rock cockerels to take the place of some that died.  There are always roosters warring with one another and they ultimately kill each other.  These must be replaced so that we have fertilized eggs. We like to either let a broody hen sit on a few each year or put a few in our incubator.  Obviously, it's all for naught if the eggs aren't fertilized.

Baby Barred Rock

I also ordered 5 Aracauna or Americauna chicks to add to our little Aracauna family.  These little girls lay beautiful green and blue eggs!  They are a smaller bird and more of a 'wild' creature than the Black Stars, Rhode Island Reds, and Aracaunas roaming on the pasture.

Day old Aracauna chick

Finally I ordered 4 keats!  Keats are baby guinea fowl.  They are the cutest little critters you ever laid eyes on.

Baby Keats!

Here's three of the four keats that Benjamin is holding.  I ordered Straight Run, so hopefully we have two males and two females.

A Handful of Keats

We actually have a male guinea that someone gave us.  Guinea fowl mate for life. This male guinea's mate got killed and he went into mourning and some friends gave him to us.  Maybe one of these little keats will grow up and befriend him, who knows.  He needs some friends.  He flies high into the top of a tree each night to roost - all by himself.  

Our Lonely Male Guinea

A couple of things about guineas - they lay small eggs that are good for eating. Guineas make a good gumbo.  The guinea eggs are hard and are great for pocking. You can READ HERE to learn about pocking eggs.  My great grandmother would bring us guinea eggs for pocking each year when we were kids.  

The other thing about guineas is that they are great 'watchdogs' for snakes.  They will gather around a snake, pecking at it and make a lot of noise!  They also do a great job in eradicating bugs - even better than chickens.  So it is good to have some of these around the homestead.  It'll be fun watching the keats grow!  They all seem really healthy and full of vigor and energy, running around the brooder.

Boisterous babies in the brooder

Baby chicks are just so much fun.  Benjamin enjoys watching them run around and play.  He could just stand there for a long time and watch them.

Keeping a close eye on the new babies

It's always fun when baby chicks come in the mail - way more entertaining than anything on television...