This is the post office calling…
We received a call from the central receiving post office in our area on April 19th- a Sunday, to inform us that our chickens had arrived. We were on our way to the North Shore to help a friend of ours move since we didn’t expect the chicks to arrive until Monday. This way silly on our part, because as rule #2 says, chickens can’t be manufactured on demand. We turned around and headed back to the house to get grain, water, the brooder, some newspapers, a big box, and our main reference book Living With Chickens.
Being that it was Sunday and the “real people” post office was closed, we had to drive around to the place where all the mail trucks come in. We picked up a small peeping box and headed to my friend’s house. When we got there we set them all up and went about the task of helping move, which for us consisted of cooking lunch and installing speakers. Taking care of the new arrivals is pretty easy, make sure you’ve got the following:
- A brooder
- grain
- water
- newspaper
- a waterer
- a feeder
- Put newspaper down and set up the feeder and waterer in the brooder.
- Take the chick out of the box it shipped in, check the vent (read: the backside) for pasting up. This is when poop becomes caked over the vent and prevents the bird from being able to “go”. Not a pleasant way to die. Moisten a paper towel and clean up the mess if there is one.
- Check the birds eyes, make sure they’re bright and alive and that the chick is “present” and alert.
- Dip the birds beak INTO your waterer until they take a sip, this will help them find water easily. This is really important so I’ll repeat it.
- Dip the birds beak into the waterer until they take a sip, this will help them find water easily.
- Wait and watch.
The chief thing you’re looking for is normal behavior. This means everyone is milling about, not picking at each other (pecking the bodies and toes of cage mates in an aggressive way - caused by stress) and not all huddled into one area (this is called piling and means they are stressed, generally it occurs from the birds being too cold). You also want to be on the look out for the birds avoiding the area where the heat source is. This is an indication that it is too hot. Everyone should be moving around all areas of the brooder freely and getting access to food and water.
Make sure everyone is eating and drinking. It’s good advice for a party host, and for the moment that’s what you are (with a room full of chicks no less!) don’t blow it.
Lunch came and went and we started the long drive back home. I had to drop off my friend at his old place so he could get his car, I had to drop off Taryn down the street from there at her place, and then I had to head back to the farm. Our brooder is old and too large to fit into the truck in anyplace but the bed. We had brought another box to store them in for the ride home, so we transferred them over, using the opportunity to count them all and do another wellness check on them individually.
Our friend Joe monitored the box in the back seat, and we headed to the city. Once I had dropped everyone off I moved the box up front and into the passengers seat floor area. I put on the heat with emphasis on the floor vents and cranked it up. The car was disgustingly hot. I drove the last half hour of the trip without a shirt on (which I think is illegal) because it was just becoming too much to deal with.
The chicks piling after the car ride:
They were in the car for quite a while, so when I finally set them up at the house they were a bit stressed and started to pile. Luckily the heat lamp warmed them up and calmed them down and in a few minutes they were back to normal. I went to sleep on the couch that night to a chorus of peeping chicks that slowly gave way to silence as they took their cue from the darkened house and I got some much needed rest.