Having limited time to raise new peeps before taking my vacation, I had to plead with my local farm store to let me put my name on a list for two Rhode Island pullets when their next order came in. Apparently they wanted to try going to a first come, first serve system. Fortunately, my pleas were pathetic enough to get my name on the list.
The first time I went to buy some female chicks, way back when, and the woman told me they had pullets, I thought she meant teenage girls, not hatchlings. I had prepared for bigger girls by using a dog crate with wide bars. I brought the girls home and had to whip up a smaller establishment for them, pronto. They would have been all over the place otherwise.
I was called when the chicks arrived and since I didn’t get the message until they closed, I had to go the next day. Luckily, there were plenty of chicks to go around and I believe they didn’t have a system in place to keep two chicks aside for me, so I was thrilled to be in time to claim them.
I picked out two hardy girls, paid for them and brought them to their new forever home.
I placed them in the box I had prepared for them the day before and watched them apprehensively for half the day. Poor chicks looked like they were going to die, stretched out in the straw, eyes closed. I had to remind myself about their life thus far. They managed to crack out of their shells, to be placed on a conveyer belt, flipped upside down and squeezed to see if they were indeed girls, boxed up, shipped from god knows where, placed in the store with their first food and water for a night, before being hauled home by me in a small cardboard box the next morning. I’d be worn out too.
After half a day, they had recovered enough to sit up and move around a little. Once they found their food and water, it was on. You haven’t seen anything eat as voraciously as a baby bird. When they had a couple meals, they were revived enough to run around their box cheeping. It looks like we made it over the hurdle. Tomorrow we begin some gentle taming and handling. Hope these girls enjoy it as much as their predecessors.
Now what to name them?