Cute chicks!

Hilda had an email on Monday that our chicks had been shipped. We anxiously awaited a phone call from the post office, which did not come on Tuesday. Hilda and I each checked the tracking number this morning and discovered that they had left Palatine at 10:39 last night. Certainly they would be in this morning. Hilda waited until 6:20, and found that they were just unloading the truck. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. We got in my car and headed into town.

Not too much was stirring at that hour in Harvard. We rang the bell and were invited into the back of the post office through the double door at the loading dock. This year, a man actually checked Hilda’s driver’s license. We took the little chirping box and went home. Hilda could not resist peeking under the lid.

Here’s a picture of a box of cute chicks.

Box o' chicks

Two of the meat chickens have spots this year. We had another one with a spot some years ago. I called him Spot. Now we will have Spot 1 and Spot 2. We don’t normally name the meat chickens unless there is something special about them. In fact, I can only think of two we have named—Spot and Gimpy.

Naming the pullets is another matter, and one that requires some serious thought. This year, Hilda suggested a Spanish theme. Years ago, before we had chickens, we watched a documentary called Mad City Chickens. This film featured a rescue chicken named Consuela. Hilda has wanted a chicken with that name ever since, so that will inform our choices. I included names from a couple of my favorite students. I don’t think they would mind.

We are trying a new breed this year, the Black Star. They are supposed to be good layers, although Hilda could not recall what their personalities were like. We also got our usual three Ameracaunas because we have to have the blue/green eggs, of course.

The Black Star all look alike, at least so far. My choices for names are Juanita, Lupita, and Carmelita. We will have to wait until they are big enough to leg band them before we can tell them apart.

Juanita, Lupita, or Carmelita

This is Consuela. We like her beautiful eye liner.

Consuela (you can still see the egg tooth at the tip of her beak)

This might be Idalis.

Idalis? Is that you?

And we haven’t decided on the last name yet. Maybe Maria.

What's your name, little chick?

In addition to the usual package of vitamins for the water, we got a small zip-top bag of Pro-Gel in the bottom of the chick box. The instruction said to mix it with ½ cup of water and spread it on top of the food. I scanned the ingredients to be sure that there were no antibiotics. There were not. It was a combination of probiotics, vitamins, and minerals. It came out of the bag as a tan powder. As soon as we added the water, it became an appalling shade of deep blue-green. I was all for putting it on top of food in a little bowl, but Hilda thought it would be easy enough to pick out of the regular feeder. They are only supposed to have it for 24 hours. Also, it is enough for 100 chickens…. I hope they don’t overdose.

One by one, we dipped their beaks in water and released them to the enclosure in Coop 2. They really liked the Pro-Gel. They also enjoy walking over their food. By the time I got back from my meetings this afternoon, they had the gel stomped into the food. Hard to say how easy it will be to remove in the morning.

Sadly, one of the meat chicks died before 8:30. The trip was too much for it. At least it wasn’t one of the layers.