New to chickens, again

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doughouse said:
Hi all!

I feel like a chicken newbie, but only because it's been such a long time since I last had chickens. When I was in high school my little brother's elementary school science class did a chick incubation project, and my parents agreed to adopt the baby chicks that hatched. We went to the library and took out every single book they had on raising backyard chickens (both of them!) and soon had an old doghouse in our garage converted into a brooder.

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We ended up with two roosters and a hen, but fortunately we knew someone who knew someone who had a flock of hens and wanted a rooster, so that worked out well for everyone. We were left with Henry and Pot Pie, and they were great pets.

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This is me, in high school, posing with Henry, who suddenly found something more interesting to do right as the photo was being taken:

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But that was about 25 years ago. Now I have a house, a family, a big backyard, and neighbors who range from neutral-leaning-positive to super-excited about us getting chickens. We've been talking about getting some backyard chickens for a while now, and since all of our weekend plans have been canceled for the foreseeable future this seemed like a pretty good time to get to it!

We currently have three baby chicks, five days old and asleep next to me in the brooder as I write this. We have a Barred Rock, a Barnevelder (below), and an Olive Egger, which I suspect is a Marans/Ameraucana hybrid. In a week and a half we'll be adding a Golden Laced Wyandotte, Silver Laced Polish, and Blue Splash Marans to the mix, provided they all make the journey through the USPS okay.

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I don't think I could have avoided BackyardChickens.com even if I wanted to. Every time I googled a question about chickens this forum came up as one of the top results, and soon I was skipping going to google and just coming straight here to search the archives. This is a fantastic community, and I'm very happy and excited to become a member!
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Chicks thru the USPS would be the way to go. I ordered 100 chicks to be delivered to Ramsey, NJ in 1977, had to order a lot at one time for price and the cold road trip.
Ellie and Marty, my brother, let the Postmaster know that they were coming, had date and time. Pickup at Post Office. Post Master also had chickens, and was thrilled to trust them with order. They arrived at 5:00am, and we picked them up at 8:00am. Note to post office employees, they didn't need the oreo's fed thru box. Handled as should, fragile, live cargo.
from the Murray McMurray Hatchery, Webster City, Iowa to New Jersey in Mid March was a feat in itself. I trust the Post Office shipping any live animal. Was a long time ago, but seeing those Postal clerks smile, and the follow up was amazing on their staff.
 
Ellie in FL said:
Chicks thru the USPS would be the way to go. I ordered 100 chicks to be delivered to Ramsey, NJ in 1977, had to order a lot at one time for price and the cold road trip.
Ellie and Marty, my brother, let the Postmaster know that they were coming, had date and time. Pickup at Post Office. Post Master also had chickens, and was thrilled to trust them with order. They arrived at 5:00am, and we picked them up at 8:00am. Note to post office employees, they didn't need the oreo's fed thru box. Handled as should, fragile, live cargo.
from the Murray McMurray Hatchery, Webster City, Iowa to New Jersey in Mid March was a feat in itself. I trust the Post Office shipping any live animal. Was a long time ago, but seeing those Postal clerks smile, and the follow up was amazing on their staff.
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Oh yeah, when I went to the post office I just said, "I'm here for the chicks" and the clerk was like, "oh hey, the chicken guy!" and it was the happiest, easiest transaction ever.
 

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