Here they are. They hatched Monday March 30th, shipped that afternoon and I had them Wednesday April 1st from the post office before they opened.
Ordered 15 from Cackle Hatchery. Needless to say, I was a little bit surprised when 21 showed up. All but one was very healthy, and we fixed that one with some sugar water.
So far, I have not 100% identified any of them as cockerels. Looks like our cost to feed, and egg yield is going to be about 40% higher than expected. Oh well. Thankfully I'd made the run plenty big for 15. They have full time access to it, and while I feel like it's adequate for 21 birds, it's about as tight as I'd want to have them. Granted I'm new to this, but that's my gut.
They are go in the house to roost just fine every evening. Some earlier than others, and some stay in a bit later. They all pretty much run their own show and I've seen virtually zero bullying. Perhaps that will come with age, but for now I'm just thankful.
We try to go see them each morning and evening with some treats, but there are plenty of days when they unfortunately, don't get much interaction with us. The good news is that the set up allows them to be entirely self sufficient for days on end if need be. It was a lot of work, but it will be nice when we go on vacation and all a neighbor has to do is eyeball everything and remove the eggs from the outside of the coop. Speaking of eggs, I've got the boxes barricaded off. All of the roosts (a total of about 30 feet) are well above the boxes and they pretty much only use the very highest 8 feet. Anyway, I can't wait to bust that barricade off soon and these girls start feeding me! I think it's going to work pretty well. Fingers crossed.
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