Whew, I can’t believe we’ve had chicks for a month now. My how time flies when you’re playing with taking care of chicks! We wanted to do one of these posts each week posting as the chicks grow, but turns out life sometimes has other plans.
Ben and I both work for the same tech company and that company is working towards achieving the highly sought-after certification to be able to sell our software to government entities. Which while that’s gonna be awesome, requires a great deal of work during our auditing period to provide the evidence necessary to prove we have designed our software with all the security features they required. So essentially since end of March, Ben and I have been working longer hours, being crazy people doing all the things, then coming home loving on dogs/chickens and passing out.
But anywho, now you to see the chicks and I can assure you the wait was worth it 🙂
So March 26th we drove up to Murray McMurray Hatchery (see blog post on picking a hatchery) in Webster City, IA to pick up our 10 lovely ladies (see blog post on our chick selection). They had a good sized facility where we picked them up which seemed to be their packing/shipping building. Upon entering our ears were filled with the sounds of very loud baby chicks. At the time, I was like: “MAN is our office going to be loud!
It was nice to see the level of bio-security they implement to keep the birds safe. It may seem strange to think of the chicks or hens needing to be kept safe from mother nature, especially given the fact they will be outdoors for most of their lives. However bio-security is incredibly important to reduce the spreading of disease and illness from outside the hatchery to the inside. Imagine it to be similar to trying to control and contain a deadly flu outbreak in a school when people can just come and go as they please. Our own bio-security will continue once they’re moved out to their coop, and any visitors will need to ensure they wash their hands and likely some other steps to ensure we don’t get our ladies sick
At McMurray’s they had a gated half door entrance which the customers (us) stayed on one side, and the facility employees and chicks stayed on the other. A large specialized mat split the two rooms with a sign nearby stating it had been filled with some chemical designed at killing the types of viruses, bacteria, etc it was trying to protect the birds from. A young lady met us at the half door and went into back room to grab the chicks. We were handed a box that seemed way to small for ten ladies and were on our way.
Loud protesting cheeps were heard the whole 45 minute ride home. But 45 minutes sure beats 2-3 days all jumbled around in a dark and cold box. I tried really hard to not peek at the fluff nuggets or open the box too much until we got home (but I totally failed). Eventually I set them on the floor in the backseat and they settled into only modest protesting cheeps
There’s 10 chicks in here! 
Way more room than I imagined!
Prior to leaving we had setup their full enclosure already (see blog post on setting up their brooder). We had turned on their brooder plate before we left to make sure they’d have a nice and warm place to sleep after their big adventure. When we got home filled up their water with some slightly warm temperature water to help them keep their body temps up while they adjusted to their new home. We took each lady out, inspected her over for any injuries or pasty butts that might need treating, dipped her beak in the water (the most critical of resources for them to know where to find), and set her loose.
Black Star 
Gold Laced Wyandotte 
Silver Laced Wyandotte
OR Cuckoo Maran
Ameraucana #1 
Silver Laced Wyandotte
OR Cuckoo Maran
Ameraucana #2 
Red Star #1 
Silver Laced Wyandotte
OR Cuckoo Maran
Red Star #2 
Dominique
You’ll also notice we lined the coop with paper towels to provide better traction and prevent spraddle legs. They will be on the paper towels for approximately 3-4 days. This also made for pretty easy cleanup as we could just roll up the paper towels and toss, cause BOY do they make a mess! We clean everything out twice a day as having a nice clean environment for them is key to proper development.
Also this was like 10 minutes after we got them….
SO MUCH POOP!
Everyone was super thirsty and thrilled at being not in the box. It was funny to watch their skepticism of the larger brooder which everyone was sure that it was going to murder them. Eventually one brave one chick wandered over to out and was like: OMG IT MAKES THE WARM! Within a few minutes, the room was dead silent and chicks were PTFO after their busy day!
One thing I will mention here as I think it’s a common misconception. Happy chicks are quiet chicks. The have soft occasional peeps that just sound content. Loud chicks are mad chicks. They could be cold, hungry, thirst etc and for whatever reason unable to figure out how to solve their issue. We had one little one who would always freakout whenever the lights would turn off at dusk. I went in to investigate and found her on the other side of the brooder unable to locate the warm brooder well in the dark and missing her fellow sleeping friends. We went changed our night timer to dim the light first and then 30 minutes later turn off and angry peeps were reduced.
Their first week was filled with eating, drinking and sleeping. They had a lot of growing to do and had a lot of new changes to get used to. Also in case you haven’t seen baby chicks sleep, they sleep like they were dead. So there were quite a few heart attacks this week coming in and see the worst. I can easily see how chicks could drown in even shallow dishes of water, because they just kinda decide they’re tired and flop over.
It probably comes as no surprise that both the cats and the dogs were super interested in what was going on in the room. We had decided prior to keep the chicks the office and planned on keeping the door shut during their 8 weeks they would be indoors. One partial small kitten was very eager to meet her new house mates. Largely due to this interest, and the barking dogs, we also added a eye hook to the door to prevent Esther from jumping up and pushing in a partially latched door and put a baby gate outside of it about four feet from the door so the dogs and less agile cats (aka fat) don’t come up right against the office door.
We decided not to name them yet, namely because they all looked very similar. We didn’t know which ones were which and we wanted them to develop a bit more personality so their names could match. We did however decide to name all our chicks after various goddess, because that sounds awesome. We still have a three awaiting their names at age four weeks, so if you have awesome names just let us know! We’re going to continue posting about each week of their development, just on a bit of a delay due to ALL THE WORK!
