Well before anyone had heard of Covid19 we ordered Chicks to refresh our flock. 16 Hens and 1 Rooster, they arrived yesterday morning with a 6:04AM call from the Post Office. Luckily being farm folk, we were already up so we didn’t answer in a stupor! Farm Dad had Farm Boy drive over to the Post Office and pick them up, exercising proper PPE and Social Distancing of course!
We brought the delivery box up to the coop in the brooder area we had setup. We had purchased 4 Speckled Sussex, 4 Anacona, 4 Golden Laced Wyandotte, 4 Golden Buff (Red Star), and 1 Golden Laced Wyandotte Rooster (obviously the rest were hens. We purchased thess chicks from MyPetChicken because we thought they had the best selection. Back to the grand unveiling. This not being our first Rodeo, we understood you sometimes get a surprise. This is why Farm Mom opted not to join us. So here we were, Farm Dad, Farm Boy, and Farm Girl, gathers around the box. I gently removed the staple and lifted back the lid.
The first this we saw were five dead chicks, crestfallen, we quickly removed the remaining 12 chicks. Upon reexamination we noticed one of the five was still alive. We gently put them in to see what happened. The rest however were stretching their legs and fearfully checking out their surroundings. Little by little they moved around. In a couple of hours they were super active and noisy, sweet sounds to a Farmers ears. As for the one sick/injured chick, we did what we could and rendered comfort but some things are out of our hands. Unfortunately that is part of life on a Farm.