Mail Order Chicks

Yep!  We're totally addicted to our chickens!  Those of you who read this blog know that we are raising six Ameraucana chicks and building them a coop.  Well, the coop is finished and we are putting the finishing touches on the outside pen (or run) this weekend.  The "big girls" (as they're now called) are sleeping in the coop at night now, and although I was not too happy about letting them go, I am somewhat at peace thanks to a $10 baby monitor I bought off of Craig's List.  Now, I can sleep knowing that they will raise a fit if anything tries to sneak up on them.  :0)  (Yes, I did say we're addicted...)

Okay, so we have a 64 square foot coop and the outside pen is about 150 square feet - plenty of room for lots of chickens.  (From what I've read, large-foul chickens need about 3 square feet of indoor space and about 8-10 of outdoor square feet.)  Given all of the extra room, we decided to buy a few more baby chicks just for kicks.  :0)

This time, rather than buying from a local hardware store, we purchased a "sale box" of assorted large foul chickens from MyPetChicken.com.  We received 25 assorted day old chicks in the mail, which we split with two other families.  Unfortunately, one baby died in transit, but the other 24 were quite happy and healthy.  We were supposed to get six new chicks, but because of the one not making it, we took five. 

So what do mail order chicks look like?  I have had a lot of folks ask me, so here is a photo of how our box came:

Our post office called us the day they arrived there and asked if we wanted them delivered, or if we wanted to come pick them up.  We opted to pick them up, but can you imagine?  Having your postal carrier bring a box of 25 chicks right to your front door?  It's just crazy!

Although getting a variety of chicks was a lot of fun (I will post pics of our new babies soon) I think I prefer going to the hardware store or local feed store and picking out our own babies a bit better.  Don't get me wrong, we love our new babies, but there was a bit of an impersonal feeling about just having a box delivered.  I guess losing one in the shipment was a bit sad too, but the kids handled it like pros.  They buried her and put a cross on her grave.  Sweet kids!