After several months of anticipation, our chicks finally arrived!  On Monday morning, the post office called to let us know that we needed to come and pick up a rather loud, chirping box.  To those of you not aware, yes, you can ship day-old chicks in the mail.  It still seems strange to me, and maybe the events that followed their arrival are an indication that chicks are not meant to be mailed.

Everyone gathered around as Brian brought them into the house for our first look.  We were told to expect that a few would not survive the trip. So I tried not to be too disappointed when I opened the box to find 4 dead.  There were at least 4 more that looked pretty sad as well.  It seemed a bit higher than we expected, but there were still so many, so, no worries.  We carefully introduced them to food, water and their new home and delighted in their cute little mannerisms.  The next few hours flew by! School today would be a lesson on chicks, for all of us.

After a few hours, more and more of the chicks began to display signs that something was wrong.  Many more chicks grew limp and lifeless.  My stress level began to mount as Comet would point to one and say, “There’s another dead one Mom!”  I began scouring the internet looking for some information on how to take care of these babies that were dying before our eyes.  We kept the sick ones in a separate box to provide extra attention and to keep them from being trampled.  Once isolated, we noticed many had broken legs or foot deformities, so I was sure we would lose several more.  A few seemed to make a comeback though, so we were hopeful.

At the end of 24 hours, we were left with 17 happy, healthy and playful chicks.  We had 43 just one day earlier.   It had been an exciting and sad day for us at Black Sheep Farms.  Our first experience with raising something other than plants had gone terribly awry, and we had no idea why or what we could have done to stop it.  I’ve always been so scared to make this step as a farmer.  I have told Brian several times, “It’s one thing to kill plants because we don’t know what we’re doing, it’s quite another to lose animals.”  It was like my biggest reservations were coming true.  I felt like I was responsible for these little guys and I was the reason they were all dying.  I was completely caught off guard by this wide range of emotions.  I expected that we would get the chicks, the kids would ohhh and ahhh over them for awhile, and then we would move on with the rest of our day.  I could not have been more wrong!

Brian contacted the hatchery, and his talk with them comforted us a bit.  They suspected that there was neglect or damage done to the chicks somewhere in transit.  From our description to them of what happened, there was nothing that suggested we were responsible for their deaths.  Only a bit of comfort from that, but it’s something.  We are thrilled that the chicks we lost will be replaced at no expense because of a 48-hour guarantee.  We lost one more chick over the next 24 hours, so we called and gave the total count when 48 hours was up.

The rest of the week has been so fun!  The boys have had a great time watching them and have already named them.  The deal was, they could name them if they wanted, as long as they understood that by naming them, they did NOT become pets.  Once we got past this first hurdle, the rest has seemed pretty easy.  From talking with more people who have raised chicks, we have learned that our circumstances were not typical.  This is great news since I was a little hesitant about trying again next week when the replacements arrived.

The new batch comes on Monday, wish us luck!

~Kelly