New Chickens!

Oooooh, the excitement of new baby chickens!!! Today I left bright and early for the post office to pick up hatching eggs. The kids were wide-eyed with wonder at the idea that there are baby chickens in those eggs. Yeah, these are farm kids who actually KNOW that chickens come from eggs but they've never actually watched the process so it was eggciting! All the beautiful colored eggs with the promise of exotic and colorful, never-before-seen chickens were unwrapped from their bubble wrap shipping clothes and placed butt-end up in the egg cartons. It's important to let the eggs settle and warm to room temp before putting them in the incubator. The green eggs quite obviously belong to an Ameracauna or Easter Egg hen but who's the father? What incredible combination will be emerging in 21 days? The smaller tan eggs contain Silkies, Frizzles, Cochins or possibly some other banty. That really dark chocolate colored egg-could it be a Maran? Will there be Sultans, Polish, Game or Favorelles coming? Oh, the anticipation!
When I got done with that I started thinking about the baby chicks we still have to order for our breeding and selling project. We should have them all come at the same time so we can keep them brooding together while they're still the same age and size. So I went ahead and ordered my babies. Not as exciting since I know what they will be and what they will look like. I ordered 50 Ameracauna girlies and one Ameracauna male, 50 Rhode Island Red pullets and one male, 3 Buff Orp girls and 1 boy. The order of RIRs will probably include some extra chickens humorously referred to as "packing peanuts" so that will be kind of fun. If the hatch goes okay and the mail order goes okay I'm looking at 147 chickens about February 23rd. How cool is that?
Tonight? Quiche.