Once it was decided that we would be getting chickens, I began doing as much research about them as I could. There are several large hatcheries that you can order from. They hatch the chicks, then they are shipped through USPS (Yep! The post office!) as day-old chicks to arrive at your doorstep. Chicks live for the first 72 hours on the yolk from their eggs, thus making shipping possible.

     I found Meyer Hatchery located in Polk, Ohio. I ordered 11 brown-laying assortment pullets (female) and 1 golden-laced wyandotte male. Then I waited. The chicks shipped out on a Tuesday and arrived on Wednesday. I was like a little kid on Christmas driving to go pick them up! Here is the box they came in:

     It was the cutest little peeping box you've ever seen!

     The inside of the box was even cuter! AND they shipped me an extra chick! So we had 13 chirping happy babies!

     From the box, the chicks needed to go into a brooder. This is kind of like a nursery for chickens. Chicks need food, water, and warmth with a well-regulated source of heat. We were prepared with a chick feeder, waterer, and a heat lamp. We used an old rabbit's cage as our initial brooder. When the chicks first arrive, it is recommended to give them sugar water to help give them energy from the long shipping trip.

     Newspaper on the floor is a bad idea for chicks. It can cause splayed leg and other injuries. I have found it is best to use pine shavings. For the first couple of days, we covered them with paper towels so that the chicks would learn what is 'food' and what is pine. They still get it mixed up, but not as bad as they might!

     Here are some cute chick pictures: As you can see, Jolee was skeptical of these little beasts!

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     They started to get their feathers when they were about a week old. We had been trying to guess what breeds we got, and once the feathering started coming in, all our guesses changed around!

     After they were about a week old, I started feeding them grit (it helps them process food) and I started giving them grass to play around with. If chicks get 'bored' they will pick on each other, so if you see bald spots on your chicks, they need more space and/or something to do. You can see in the picture of the bigger brooder box below that I added perches to give them something else to play on. It also helps if you put the food and waterer at about chest height. It helps keep the shavings and dust out of the feeder and waterer.

     After hearing how cute chicks look when they are dustbathing, I decided to put a little dirt in their cage to see what they would do. It was awfully cute, but ended up with dust ALL OVER the back porch. It was in every nook and cranny possible!

     After the dust took over our back porch for a couple more weeks, we decided to start thinking about moving the chicks outside. It is recommended that you let chicks feather completely out (usually around 5 weeks) before moving them outside, but due to space (and dust) constraints, we moved them out at 3 weeks. This was when it was still hot outside, so there was no worry about them getting too cold. We still kept a heat lamp on them though, just in case. Our garage is divided into three rooms, and one of them is perfect as a chicken coop.

     After doing research on height of the roost, we decided to put ours at about 4 feet. We also went ahead and built the nesting boxes. It is recommended to make 1 nest box for every 4-5 hens. We made ours from scrap wood our landlord gave us permission to use. I did the fancy painting job.

     It was about this time that the local feedstore was getting rid of the last of their fall chicks. After a little begging, I talked Jimmy into letting me bring home one Ameraucauana chick. Ameraucanas lay blue (!!!!) eggs. I thought she made a lovely addition to our flock. This brought our total up to 14 chickens. My sister named the newest chick Robin.

     As you can see, the room in the garage is a great size, with plenty of room to run around.

     Unfortunately, we would lose Robin and one of our speckled sussexes to what we think were hawks. Hawks are very dangerous to chickens, and even more so to chicks. They will swoop down and carry one off with no problem.

     After the loss of Robin, I really wanted to get a couple more blue egg layers. I searched high and low looking for someone with chicks the same age range as mine. (Integrating chickens is very difficult to do) Finally, Jimmy and I talked and I got to order 10 more chicks! So we began again....

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