The USPS is not on my list of favorite people ever right now.
My babies were guaranteed to arrive today at 3pm. Well, since I know my postmistress really well and she'd sworn to call me the minute they arrived on the truck that usually comes at 10am, I started calling around just after noon. Seems that the USPS had scanned my box of babies when they were loading the truck, so the web tracking number said they were on their way from San Antonio, yet they hadn't actually loaded the box onto the truck. ARGH! Did I mention these babies were mailed Tuesday and had already been in the box 2 days?
I live 4 hours from San Antonio, but it was SO dang hard to find true rumpless tufted Araucana chicks, I wasn't going to leave them in the box for another day. So I picked my kids up from school an hour early, made a makeshift mini-brooder for the car, and off we went to get them.
I ordered a dozen chicks from Nancy Utterback, and she packed 15. Four didn't make the trip, but IMO, that's the post office's fault for keeping the box in the air conditioning! The 11 survivors were freezing and huddled together when we got them. We moved them to our mobile brooder (complete with heat lamp), gave them all drinks of sugar water, and off we went home.
I'll post pictures tomorrow if I can make my camera work--it's notoriously fussy. I'm afraid that one black and white baby might not make the night. It hasn't taken a drink on its own yet, and it's been gagging/choking on the chick crumbles. I've had to do a sort of chick-Heimlich on it 3 or 4 times, because it sort of hacks up the crumbles to the back of its throat but can't get it out from there. Scooping out crumbles from a wiggly chick's mouth isn't fun for either of us! I don't get why it's having problems when none of the others are, because it doesn't seem listless in any other way... although it did go to sleep first tonight. I don't know.
Three babies are pasted and I cleaned them up tonight. Yet another procedure they didn't adore.
So now I'm the proud mama of eleven Araucanas, all rumpless, 4 (that I can tell so far) with adorable tufts on their ears! Six black and whites, four poofy yellow fluffballs, and one beautiful, bossy silver. I'm in love!
My babies were guaranteed to arrive today at 3pm. Well, since I know my postmistress really well and she'd sworn to call me the minute they arrived on the truck that usually comes at 10am, I started calling around just after noon. Seems that the USPS had scanned my box of babies when they were loading the truck, so the web tracking number said they were on their way from San Antonio, yet they hadn't actually loaded the box onto the truck. ARGH! Did I mention these babies were mailed Tuesday and had already been in the box 2 days?
I live 4 hours from San Antonio, but it was SO dang hard to find true rumpless tufted Araucana chicks, I wasn't going to leave them in the box for another day. So I picked my kids up from school an hour early, made a makeshift mini-brooder for the car, and off we went to get them.
I ordered a dozen chicks from Nancy Utterback, and she packed 15. Four didn't make the trip, but IMO, that's the post office's fault for keeping the box in the air conditioning! The 11 survivors were freezing and huddled together when we got them. We moved them to our mobile brooder (complete with heat lamp), gave them all drinks of sugar water, and off we went home.
I'll post pictures tomorrow if I can make my camera work--it's notoriously fussy. I'm afraid that one black and white baby might not make the night. It hasn't taken a drink on its own yet, and it's been gagging/choking on the chick crumbles. I've had to do a sort of chick-Heimlich on it 3 or 4 times, because it sort of hacks up the crumbles to the back of its throat but can't get it out from there. Scooping out crumbles from a wiggly chick's mouth isn't fun for either of us! I don't get why it's having problems when none of the others are, because it doesn't seem listless in any other way... although it did go to sleep first tonight. I don't know.
Three babies are pasted and I cleaned them up tonight. Yet another procedure they didn't adore.
So now I'm the proud mama of eleven Araucanas, all rumpless, 4 (that I can tell so far) with adorable tufts on their ears! Six black and whites, four poofy yellow fluffballs, and one beautiful, bossy silver. I'm in love!
