The Chicks Have Arrived!

Araucana chick, about 3 days old

NOTE TO MY SUBSCRIBERS:  This is an historic blog entry that was part of an email I wrote when the baby chicks arrived at Deauville.  I will be adding quite a few historic blogs to this site to tell some of the backstory since I started filming last August 2010.  My blog should have been up and running ages ago...alas, my bad....

February 21, 2011... I'm happy to report that the chicks have arrived!  By some miracle, they came on President's Day, and a very dedicated postal worker received them in the little town of Mt. Jackson, and then called Gail to come pick them up.  Needless to say, we were shocked because we were only expecting them to ship from Iowa on Monday, and to arrive later this week.    Only one chick perished as a result of the stress of shipping -- and thankfully they were in transit for only a couple of days.  So we have 83 live little -- hopefully -- girls.

I think this is a Houdan -- or a Polish -- crested, anyway!

Yesterday, with all the stresses of the day, they were very noisy for a few hours, but finally settled down for the night.   Today they seem much more settled and most of them are very sleepy.  They literally will fall over from a standing position, fast asleep.  Gail keeps a careful eye on them, checking them for blocked vents (poopy bums), and for any sign that they're not doing well.  But so far so good.

Chicks are happiest sleeping in a little pile

I'm attaching some photos... can't resist showing off our baby pictures.  Look out for the ones that look like they've got a pompom on their heads -- those are the crested breeds -- mottled Houdans (white head with black speckles), and Polish.  The ones that look like chipmunks (golden with brown stripes) are Araucanas -- the South American breed that has green legs and lays greenish blue eggs.  The colors are all off in these pictures because of the strong red light from the heat lamps.  I can't correct completely for it.

These girls will be producing eggs by next October or so, I think.