Picking up chicks

I had an early phone call from the post office this morning. It was one I was expecting.
The chicks I ordered from an in-state hatchery were there waiting to be picked up!

 The brooder was all set up and ready to go last night, all I had to do was get the box of peeping chicks home.

This hatchery sells the standard Cornish Cross(CX) broilers but also has the newer Freedom Ranger(FR) chicks. We ordered 25 of the CX and decided to try out 5 of the FR too. The FR's are the reddish-brown chicks above. They will be a slower growing bird that isn't supposed to have the possible leg problems the fast growing CX are known for. All the chicks made it through the mail and they even sent one extra CX as well.

After a quick dip of their beaks in water they were off and running in their new brooder. Their home for the next 3 weeks or so. For the first 4 hours I'm giving them water with electrolytes and vitamins only, to make sure they are well hydrated. After that I'll add in the crumbled chick feed to start filling up their little bellies.

It's hard to believe how fast these little chicks will grow. In 8 weeks they will be ready to send off to the butcher and will come home all nicely packaged and ready for the freezer. Giving us many Sundays of wonderful roasted chicken dinners!

The turkeys are here!

I got the call from the feed store this afternoon.

The turkey poults we ordered were in!!

This one was pretty sleepy when I got them home. We ordered three Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys. We can only get the bronze and white hybrids at our local feed store. It's hard to find a place to order just a few turkeys from so we take what we can get. These came from Sunnyside Hatchery in Beaver Dam. The hatchery has several delivery days where they drive up all the chicks that are ordered.

The feed store usually gets 25 broilers and brown layers to sell in addition to the customer orders. I picked up 4 broilers to go into the brooder along with the turkeys. I have read that they help the turkeys learn to eat and drink. I guess they aren't the smartest bunch! LOL  That way they have some company too.

I started them all on medicated chick crumbles and will stay on that for 2 weeks before switching out to an organic turkey grower (28% protein) that is milled locally. We haven't really gone the organic route before but after finding the mill in town mixes their own right here we are trying them out. I think it will make for a really tasty Thanksgiving meal!

Now I wonder if we should name them???