S&G Assortment in Georgia - Fall 2012

[wsmoak]

This is not starting out well! They shipped on Tuesday, got here today, and only 13 of the 49 they shipped survived the trip.

Strangely enough, in a big box with four compartments, three of them were near total losses, while all the chicks in the fourth section were alive and well. That's just... odd.

I'm waiting to hear about replacements. The S&G order form mentions an "inspection and loss report" but I can't find any such form on the post office site.

-Wendy

 

[fried green eggs]

Is that form on the hatcheries site? Did you open the box at the Post Office? Did a clerk see dead chicks and fill out a loss report for you?

 

[wsmoak]

I have the name of the postal clerk, (and yes, he saw them,) but he didn't offer a form when I asked (somewhat incoherently I'm sure.) I sent S&G a picture of the carnage after I got the live chicks settled in; hopefully that will be enough. I'll give them a call later.

I knew this was a risk shipping in August. (At least... I'm assuming the heat got them...) I even thought about driving over to get them, but it's 2.5 hours, and it doesn't really make sense to spend that much in fuel, nor did it sound like they were set up for it.

It does not help that our local postal sorting facility closed this year, and everything has to go past us 90 minutes to the east and then come back the next day.

Here are the survivors! They are mostly Rainbow (dual purpose) with one Heritage White and one Red Ranger. None of the Naked Neck chicks made it.



I'm thinking we'll do meat chickens in the spring and concentrate on rabbits the rest of the year!

-Wendy

 

[fried green eggs]

Those chicks look happy and healthy! I'm glad you have the clerks name and a witness. Would think that putting a ice pack in with the chicks would have helped or orange slices, something. Good Luck.

 

[wsmoak]

Yep, the ones that survived are perfectly fine. I talked to S&G this afternoon, and the theory is that they got packed on a truck and suffocated rather than overheated -- at least, they shipped a few hundred down to Florida where it's hotter than it is here, and those got there okay.

I'm going to check with my postmaster to see if he has any ideas, but S&G are hesitant to just repeat the same shipment, so I may just get a refund. Getting more chicks in a few weeks messes up the schedule too, as I'll have to keep the brooder on longer and it pushes processing further into the cold weather.

-Wendy

 

[wsmoak]

One week old!


Observant readers will notice that some of these things are not like the others.

Since only the Rainbow dual purpose birds survived shipping, we picked up some Royal Palm turkeys locally and added them to the brooder. The chicks were awful to them at first, pecking and chasing them, but they've all settled in now.

-Wendy

 

[wsmoak]

Two weeks old... (the turkeys are a bit older)



The next day I kicked them out of the brooder. Here they are in their tractor with their Livestock Guardian Kitty



-Wendy

 

[wsmoak]

Overhead view of the survivors. I can pick out the one 'Heritage White' (he's twice the size of the others!) but can't tell the one Red Ranger from the rest of the Rainbow dual purpose birds.


-Wendy

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

Do you have electric netting or something to enclose the area where your chicken tractor is? I had a very nice chicken tractor but my neighbor's dog discovered he could dig under it and devoured 7 of my birds in one night :-( I wanted to eat those chickens!

 

[wsmoak]

I do have electric netting, but the replacement laying flock is using it right now.

So far I have not had a problem with anything digging under the tractor. I think I would add an 'apron' of wire on the outside if that happens. Something fairly stiff so I could lift it up and hook it on the side of the tractor while I move it. Or... I bet a small solar charger and a few yards of hot wire attached to the tractor (on offsets) would fix that dog!

I did use the tractor + netting last spring when I had too many birds to confine to that one tractor. It's a pain, really. There's not *that* much room inside the fence to be moving the tractor around, and it really does have to be moved daily so they have a fresh spot to sleep on. Moving the electric netting by yourself is not much fun, and that had to be done more than I liked.

-Wendy