Baby Chicken Week

The chicken countdown has begun. As of right now, our chickies are hatching at some undisclosed location in some unknown part of the country. I wish I knew more, but the mysterious MyPetChicken isn't giving anything away, they only say they don't personally hatch or send the chicks. Sounds like the Chicken Mafia is on top of it, for real. They've been shipped Express Mail - so we should be getting them Tuesday or Wednesday. We have the brooder set up, have food ready, have planned a half-day at work for when they arrive, so we're all set for the baby chicken stork to make a call (AKA our USPS delivery man).

We ordered 4 chicks, each a different kind because we wanted some diversity. We also specifically bought birds that are cold hardy, since Chicago winters tend to be pretty harsh and we didn't want to deal with frostbite and heating the coop. You can order chicks in three different sex variations: males (cockerel), females (pullets), or straight runs (non-sexed chicks). Obviously, only females lay eggs, so we ordered females only - these cost slightly more than males and straight runs since the demand is higher. If you were raising chickens to eat and lay eggs, you could get a straight run and then only eat the boys - kinda the Valerie Solanas method of chicken keeping.

Here's what we got:

Australorp
Barred Plymouth Rock
Golden Laced Wyandotte
Rhode Island Red

I know some of the photos suck on those links, but you get the idea. Hopefully next time I write I'll have photos of our new arrivals.