To pick up 100 Barred Plymoth Rock Cockerels from Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO.
Now, first off I want to let you know as an aside that for some wacky reason I was getting Lebonon and Licking confused with one another or I never would have ordered these chicks for us to actually pick up. As it turned out... I ordered them for pick up... figured out my mistake... called to have them send them on a truck instead and it was just too late. The Last truck had already left. I wasn't looking forward to driving in Gustav's rain... but it turned out that the drive up while a little drizzly wasn't bad and then drive home was just overcast. The temps outside were in the mid to high 60's and so it really made for a very pleasant - 2 hr one way - drive.
Miranda and I had a very lovely day.
We sang in the car, ate at Wendy's - had rootbeer! - and picked out new "rare" chicks for our flock of egg layers!
We had so much fun at the hatchery looking at all the new chicks and finding out about the different breeds... we could have stayed there for hours. As it was we spent an hour there looking everything over and wishing we could get another 50 to add to our flock. They had so many neat ones, but I settled for just a few... well, eleven actually.
Here is what we came home with...
A White Crested Blue Polish (should have gotten four). Which will look something like this someday [the adult pics are not ours... just what they will/could look like when they get big. The baby pics are ours]:
He is a bit of a giant in comparison to the other wee chicks in the brooder with him today, but some day (very soon) they will be larger than he/she is. Miranda said he/she reminded her of a road runner... beep beep!! Maybe that is what we will name it. We have no idea what sexes we got... we will have to wait and see. The only thing we know is we got two barred rock pullets for certain and most likely there will be a few in the cockerel group that will turn out to be pullets as well... at least we hope.
Two Black Silkies (wish I would have gotten some white too):
Two Barred Rock Hens [Reds future girlfriends! And we will keep a couple of the roos.]:
Two Silver Seabrights:
A Buff Cochin:
A Blue Cochin:
A Partridge Cochin (our personal favorite right now. If they would have had several of these I would have gotten them all... this was the only one.) :
and a gift... A German Spitzhauben:
The Sebright and the Spitzhauben look so much alike right now that you have to look really hard at the pattern of the wing feathers to tell the difference. So, I took all three of them out at the same time and matched up the pair of sebrights to figure out who was who.
While we were gone... galavantin' across the countryside... the boys were busy back home making new brooder cages for the babies. And this is what they came up with:
It doesn't matter what they look like... what matters is that they work. Each holds about 50 chicks and hopefully this should last for 4 - 6 weeks in these quarters before going on to the larger scene.
For this first week we are keeping them in the front hallway. Next week they will be on the warf, and then a month after that they will be set up in three seperate runs/tractors to grow out the rest of the way. Once the rare breed and barred pullet chicks are fully fledged they will go in with the Sultans and the Nankin Bantams. When the larger breeds get big enough they will find their way into the house with the others, that at this point, are going to have a house in the garden for the winter.
When we got them all set up ready to go in their new home we got their water ready and went on the task of dipping thier little beaks in it for their first drink. The barred were just hatched the day before and had never had food or water at this point so we had to get their motors started. So far, so good... they have been here a whole 24 hrs + and all are doing well.
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