Our baby chicks came Monday.

[hedgehog]

We drove up to the PO in Syracuse to pick them up. Yes, just hatched chicks are still shipped via the US Mail. They can last 3 days out of the shell on the yolk that they've absorbed. We received 41 chicks of assorted heritage breeds (among them Buff Orpington, Lakenvelder, Cuckoo Maran and Silver Spangled Hamburgs); 40 that we ordered plus one free rare chick.

They're beautiful, all colors from a pale yellow, red, chipmunk patterned and black. Right now they're in their pen under the heat lamp lying down. It looks like a baby chick Riviera in there.

[InvisibleTouch]

1. Sounds excellent!

I'd love to live somewhere where I can keep chickens.

Post some pics?

[AlCzervik]

2. i wish we lived where i could have one, i really want a silkie chicken, i'd also like

to have a cow. My husband always teases me that if i ever got either or both i'd have them living in the house and they'd be overfed and spoiled rotten.

[hedgehog]

3. My daughter keeps threatening to move back home and buy a Dexter Cow.

[snappyturtle]

4. My slide show of our "girls".......

We got them as itty bitty fluffers in late March.....see how they've grown! My husband just built this house for them....nesting boxes soon! The girls are my garbage disposal! The black and white one is a Barred Rock, the middle one is an Americana (green eggs) and the red one is a Production Red. Just click the first link...worked for me anyway...there are 3 pictures.





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[hedgehog]

7. That's a lovely hen house.

Ours is a closed shed, but the birds have the free run of the 5 acres around the house yard. Every once in a while we get some that want to wander, which causes me anxiety because the neighbors don't like chickens. It's not been a problem since both neighbors witched to chem-lawn. We did have two very adventurous chickens one year though, Brown Leghorns. It was early spring and they started grazing on lawns and just kept going. One traveled 1/4 mile into the city. The other continued on another two miles past two major intersections!

[Kali]

10. that is funny!

the chicken crossed the road(s) to go to town

[snappyturtle]

12. Thank you....my husband will like hearing that. We have 3 acres

and when they get bigger we'll let them out. Guess they will kill scorpions! We're in the Hill Country of Texas.

Hope we don't have any adventurous types! Your story is funny though. I'm having fun naming ours....giving them the names of all my mother's friends! She's 91 and the names just fit! I have, so far, Hilda, Clara, Agnes, Ruth, June, Beulah, Helen, Ethel, Ruby, Elva now I gotta think of the names of my grandmother's friends!

[hedgehog]

13. I did have to chase off a young fox with a broom one time.

He was so startled he dropped the hen. She just settled her feathers and went about her business.

I don't know what kind of critters you have around you. Here I'm in the middle of cleared land going back to woods, so I have fox, raccoons. opossum, skunks and the occasional coyote to keep an eye out for. Our worst problem is that we're in a major migratory fly way for hawks and eagles. They come up the Oswego River to Lake Ontario, turn right over Derby Hill to get some altitude, then cross over Lake Ontario to Canada. You wouldn't believe how many chickens can crowd under a lilac bush when there is a hawk in the air!

[snappyturtle]

14. Predatory types include coyotes and hawks otherwise we

have bunches of black buck antelope, axis and white tail deer, road runners, armadillos and zillions of birds who are eating us out of house and home! But they're all fun to watch. I hope I don't have to see my "girls" hiding from a hawk but I suppose nature being nature I will!

[hedgehog]

18. We once saw a road runner wandering around the parking lot at the grocery store.

How he got to upstate New York is a mystery!

[snappyturtle]

19. That is curious!? The resident road runner here follows my

husband on the mower and eats well as insects are stirred up!

The only other place I've seen road runners is in Arizona. "Yours" must of hitched a ride! Poor thing..I don't think they migrate do they?

We had sad news this morning. Got up to see a hit antelope on the road. It was a yearling. So sad. I love these animal the best of all the big critters because they frolic all around the house and when they run they "boing"...jump from all fours like their hooves have big springs on them. We live on a small road....little country two lane....thirty mile an hour speed limit...but the way they run, so fast, a driver probably couldn't have avoided it. A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time!

[hedgehog]

20. The deer cut across my side yard to cross the road and get to the river.

We have a car/deer incident every other year or so. The amazing thing is how an animal so big can go crashing through the honeysuckle hedge without leaving a trace!

By the way, free range hens are hell on ticks!

[snappyturtle]

21. Glad to hear about the tick thing. My dad was severely

disabled from Lyme's Disease before there was a good tesst for it. My husband asked me to ask you if you have trouble with cats attacking your chickens?

[hedgehog]

22. We keep the young chicks secured well away from the cats.

The large pullets and full grown hens have no trouble from the cats. I wouldn't know how bantams fare with cats, though. Dogs can be tough on chickens as well.

[snappyturtle]

23. That's what we thought. We keep the chickens in their hen

house for now. But when they get bigger we're going to let them out some. We have three neighbor's cats that are driving my husband nuts...they kill our wild birds. He's now mounted the big feeder on top of a laundry "T" post....the cats can't jump up that high! Our cat is interested in the birds but she eats well and is totally not coordinated! So no danger from her. I remember the chickens on my grandparents farm and collecting eggs and such and there were cats on the farm but I never remember anything bad coming from them and they certainly could have gotten into the hen yards surrounding the two chicken houses. Thanks for your input!

[skygazer]

5. As opposed to adult chicks

Just teasing. :hi:

We used to raise birds - I really like them. The soft noises they make when they're just going about their business are very soothing. I had pheasant, quail, ducks, chicken, geese and turkeys and sometimes I used to just sit out in the barn and space out listening to them.

[Kali]

6. congrats! they are so cool, I do love the chickens.

I need a few more, my girls are getting pretty old but I have rotten luck raising chicks, need to find adults. Unfortunatly the local feed store burned down and it will be awhile before there is another great community bullitin board like he had!:(

[hedgehog]

8. Most hatcheries will ship a minimum order of 25.

You'll have to order soon though, because it usually takes 21 days to fill an order and you want to have a good chunk of summer weather for the babies.

[Kali]

9. Oh I have ordered day-olds before and gotten them local,

It's just that I have rotten luck (or bad predator control) right about the time they are ready to start laying, SOMETHING always happens. So I am always on the look out for older birds or culls - I don't need an egg every day from every bird so I sort of run a retirement home for old hens, I guess. None of mine are younger than 5 or 6, I am sure. heh heh.

[hedgehog]

11. We put some of our first chickens in the stew pot.

They were delicious. They made store bought chicken taste like card board. The yard just looked too empty without them though, so now all our chickens die of old age except for the ones that stay out late and end up going on dates with Mr. Reynard.

[pitohui]

15. i am officially jealous

chickens no longer allowed in my neighborhood :-(

[hedgehog]

17. We're fighting a proposed zoning change from agricultural to

residential. Supposedly we and future owners would be grandfathered, but.... the problem is that we live on a main road paralleling the river and all the farmers along here sold off the frontages as lots. It's a residential area 10 miles long and 50' - 200' deep!

[pitohui]

16. i am officially jealous

chickens no longer allowed in my neighborhood :-(