Chicks

Monday morning, at 8 am on the dot, I got a call from the post office.
"Hello, this is Beach Lake Post office.  We have chickens here for you."
Me:  "Oh... I didn't know that they'd be in so early."
Her:  "Yes." 
Long pause.
Her:  "You can pick them up at any time.  Any time."

Baby chicks are cute, but they are also very noisy.  And noisy baby chick peeps apparently do not enhance the environment of the local post office, particularly on an under-caffeinated Monday morning.   

Since this is my first time mail ordering chickens (you really can get anything off the internet) I had no idea how exactly they'd show up.  How do you ship live chickens through the mail?  In a small chicken sized box, with holes punched in.  And if you order baby chicks through the mail, it is perfect acceptable to walk up to the mail counter and tell the clerk that you would like "six stamps and a box of chickens please".  It's a little strange.

So we have 25 baby chicks of the "Feather Footed Fancy" variety from Murray McMurray Hatchery and they are settled in and doing nicely.  We added two more heat lamps as it got cold last night and there seemed to be a baby chick shoving match under the single heat lamp.