I knew that I wanted to order some dark egg girls in the spring so I gave Ideal a heads up on my intentions. A couple of days later I received an email saying that they had a limited quanity of dark egg chicks available, was I interested? Of course I am - BUT... We live in "Little Siberia" Utah. We're expecting snow tonight. I decided against ordering them. But the offer pecked at my brain. At a friend's house today, I jokingly threatened dh to order more chickens and he emphatically said "No more chicks!" Fast forward an hour (after he had picked up his thesis saying it was finally ready to go to committee - yippee!), eating a sandwich and discussing life, I told him about the email from Ideal. He suggested that I should go ahead and order them now rather than early spring - that even with the snow, it is probably warmer now than then. WHAT??? Dh telling me that I should order chicks now - yet alone - that I should order chicks! A couple of hours later I called Ideal and ordered the chicks. I still don't feel 100% good about it - we are gambling with weather here. But he's right, we'd be gambling in early spring, too. So everyone, please keep your fingers crossed for them and think warm thoughts. The worse part of their trip will be the truck ride from the airport to our frosty mountain valley - hopefully they won't get too chilled. I'll be waiting each morning for that phone call with ricebags ready to zap in the microwave so I can warm them up ASAP. I'll let you know how many survive the trip when they arrive in three weeks.
Good luck! I've lived in Utah twice. And I have a rice bag! Great little things. That should help a great deal. The weather being warmer now is why I decided to incubate a few chicks so they'd be laying in early spring. Hope they make it okay!
Well, you are no worse than the rest of us except for the snow. I have never ordered chicks before and now have 36 coming, along with 38 eggs in the bator, 4 under a banty and a dozen more eggs on order. Am converting a concrete workshop into a chicken nursery in case they are not feathered out well enough for when we get cold. Or the coops aren't ready.
You are right - the temps are much like they are in other areas right now. I'm just hoping it stays up until they get here. I just hate the thought of them sitting in a cold mail truck for the 100 miles between the airport and the post office. If we're lucky the weather will in the upper 30's when they come, but we do often have snow on the ground by Halloween which stays until spring. Winter is supposed to be milder this year. Our first freeze was a couple of weeks ago and the temps have warmed up a bit. Hopefully the lows will be no where near our normal -20/-30F. I guess I'm just not looking forward to winter this year. I feel so bad for the outdoor animals when the thermometer heads down past zero - but they always seem to survive. Last year, my little silkie decided to hatch some eggs in November. They cozied up and all survived temps down to -20 out in the unheated greenhouse. That is where our batch of 25 five week old chicks are now. By the time the next batch arrives and is ready for the greenhouse, these will be old enough to move into one of the other coops. Just feeling a bit over-concerned I guess after reading all of the comments last night about receiving cold, dying baby chicks. So I'll say it again- keep your fingers crossed and think warm thoughts. I'll do the same for all of you doing the same thing this time of year. Hopefully, we'll all be comparing our girls early next spring and wondering when the first eggs will arrive.
Idiot Mary Ann - of course the lows won't be below zero - it is October! Talk about getting over-dramatic! Thanks for listening to my rant and rave.
Got my fingers crossed for you that the weather will hold. I'd probably be doing more babies but it's time to bring in the houseplants and Orchids so I don't have anywhere indoors to do chicks at this time of year...for now...(Inserts the evil eyebrows that raise up and down). Dawn
Ok - you can all uncross your fingers. The chicks have arrived. All week long I have had dreams of receiving a box of dead peepers and when the phone call came this morning at 9:30 I was really worried. Normally they call first thing "Come and get these chicks!" But this morning, our regular carrier called and asked if we wanted her to deliver them to us to save the trip to town. Dh thanked her and said we'd come get them but that made me wonder why the peeping wasn't driving the PO people crazy and why would she want to have to listen to it for hours. Needless to say my imagination was running full speed. What we did find was a box full of live girls. One was cold and almost dead and I nearly revived it. Unfortunately, I ended up getting it too warm while we were out doing some chores. Poor baby didn't make it. One baby has a huge scab on the belly but seems to be doing fine. So, I have a bin full of Welsummers, Marans, and Barnvelders - eating me out of house and home. One thing I find interesting is they aren't that noisy. I don't see how it can be a result of coming from a different hatchery (Ideal) but they just don't seem to be as active or fat and sassy as my other orders have been from McMurray. Rather than hatchery, I think it might have something to do with the time of year. Thanks again for all of the moral support, winter can come on now - at least we don't have to keep hoping for warm days and let the Santa Anas die down in CA.