More chicks!

Our son had really wanted a specific breed of chicken for the fair this year. The breed is Polish, and as adults they look like they are wearing hair metal wigs.

The feed mill where I purchased our other chicks didn't have any available. We decided that we would try to hatch some eggs in an incubator. I bought 6 eggs from ebay, had them delivered. All 6 eggs arrived intact. For the 3 week incubation period, we carefully turned them 3 times a day, and made sure that the temperature and humidity stayed correct. All 6 eggs were duds. Absolutely nothing developed in them at all.
Back to the drawing board. Most hatcheries only sell batches of 25 chicks. We did NOT want 25 more chicks. I found a hatchery that would sell us just 4. $12 worth of chicks costs $46 with shipping.
This morning the phone rang at 6:30 am. The post office telling us that the chicks had arrived. I went to pick them up after the kids went to school. As soon as I walked into the building I could hear them peeping. All 4 were healthy and happy. They ship them in a box with straw type material and a heat pack to keep them warm.
At first the older chicks were afraid of the babies when I put them together, but they seem to be getting over it. The others are 2 weeks old now, and have doubled in size. Fluff is being replaced by feathers.

Chick Day!

Our 9 year old son raises "fancy" chickens for 4H, to show at the fair in August. We have 7 older chickens from last year, and we just added 7 babies on Tuesday. We special ordered several different breeds from a feed mill about an hour away, and picked them up on Tuesday. Fancy chickens are breeds that are considered more or less "ornamental". Not used for meat or known for producing lots of eggs, though they do lay some eggs. Pets basically.
All of ours are bantam breeds, which are about half the size of most other chickens. This year we got one Araucana, 3 Buff Brahmas, 2 Mille Fleurs, and one blue Silkie. We also have 6 Polish breed chicken (they look like they are wearing Tina Turner wigs as adults) eggs in an incubator which should hatch, or not, in afew days.
Baby chicks are cute, but it is quite a lot of work to care for them. They tend to be quite messy, especially once they get a little older and have sawdust in their cage. Which is a baby swimming pool in our laundry room. They can't go out to the barn until they are fully feathered, which will be about 6 weeks. I'm hoping that in 2 weeks or so we'll be able to put them in the garage with a heat lamp.
I put a marshmallow peep in with them to show how small they are. Not much bigger than a marshmallow peep with legs! I also learned that real chicks are afraid of marshmallow chicks.