The Chicks Arrive!

The chicks arrive!

After a winter of finding sources for Australorp chicks, purchasing associated supplies, and setting up a safe place in the house for chicks too little to be in a coop, we placed an order with a local farm for the darling little fluff balls: five hens and one roo. March of 2014 saw the coop delivered and we had obtained an old playpen to raise the babies in a spare room. Heat lamp, medicated chick feed, and appropriate treats. I also purchased the materials to build the run myself. Commercially available runs are more costly and not as secure as I would like, even in suburban NJ there are plenty of predators and pests. Raccoons, foxes, birds of prey, stray cats, an occasional stray dog, and possibly even coyote can all potentially invade, so I wanted security.

On April 4^th of 2014 the local farm contacted us to let us know that the babies had arrived. They were born on April 2^nd. My wife and I asked them to keep them safe until we could pick them up on the 6^th. We wanted to pick them up early and have a full day to get them safely home and acclimated to the playpen where they would be staying for four to six weeks until they were old enough to move out to the coop.

 

Now, the first mistake is naming your livestock. Bear in mind that we don’t intend to eat them, so we figured we’d name them anyway … and … like most first time chicken owners, they ended up with what some would call ‘old lady names’ Please don’t take offence if you are NOT an old lady, but happen to have one of these names! Our new flock as follows:
Mildred
Myrtle
Matilda
Hortense
Hildegard
Hermione
Ermatrude

And … the ‘hero’ of this blog … Coq Au Vin… our rooster. Don’t forget, this is a blog (mostly) about our rooster! All of the chickens have unique personalities and have developed additional nick names which you will read an out in excruciating detail ad nauseam as the blog progresses, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll often refer to our lil roo as ‘Coq Au’ or ‘Coco’ for short.