Baby Broilers are Here!

 A day later than I thought, we got our baby broiler chicks. Yes, they come in the mail!  Via USPS!  If you didn't know it, just hatched baby chicks don't need food or water for approximately 72 hours after they are born.  Which makes it quite easy to ship them!  They keep each other warm, and they are quite resilient!

So far, I have been giving them our homemade mix, not sure if I may try to get them some baby broiler mix, because I still don't have everything they are going to need in the mix that I have for them...

We ordered 25 baby broilers, and the hatchery, Meyer Hatchery out of Ohio, actually sent us 26!  Woot!  They must have thought one of them looked a little sickly....  But they arrived in good condition, and are still 24 hours after getting them, are looking good!

You MAY notice in this picture, that there are some babies to one side and more babies to the other...  And not really any in the middle where the heat lamp is the strongest.  After this picture I took the lamp up a little, because this means it is way too warm under the heat lamp.  I inch it up, little by little, until we find the happy medium!  If there are a bunch of babies huddled directly under the lamp and no where else, that means it's too cold and they are all trying to pile up under the warmest spot...

It also helps to have a thermometer, but after many times of doing this, we just kind of read the chicks!  Then each week as they get older, we just raise the heat lamp a little higher and a little higher.... until they are on their own!  In the summer time, it is a lot easier to bring the chicks out sooner because of the warm temps.  In the Fall, we will have to keep the chicks under the lamp longer...

It definitely feels good to have these chicks.  Knowing that at the end of November we will have a freezer full of chicken for the Winter.  We only have a few chickens in the freezer now... we have one from the broilers we raised this summer, and we still have a couple from the black broilers we raised last February/ March.  And to note, the black broilers- I WAS NOT impressed with.  Could have been the type, but I know it would have helped to have raised them on pasture, which we weren't able to do in February and March.

All in all, I am enjoying the farm life, even as the temps are dropping...  New life, food preparations being made...

I am also working on an actual WEB SITE for our farm.  We will be putting our Jacobs and goats up for sale there (in the future), and eventually working locally with selling meat chickens, maybe beef, turkey, eggs, and more...  I am just hoping to get it looking good, and that it will serve it's purpose, of helping sell animals to help me supplement some of our income.  I will put a link up here when I get it all done, so you all can help and tell me what you think!  I pray it works out!

More additions are coming in November, plus we should be getting our goats back from getting bred.  It is also about time to breed our Jacob sheep!  Lots happening!

Well, time to get the chores done!  I have put it off long enough (it's CHILLY out this morning!!).  Take care!  Have a great weekend!