Our post office calls to tell me that our chickens are here. Nevermind the fact that on Wednesday I called JM Hatchery and they had no record of my order and very nicely offered to ship the following week. Turns out that the order was under my wife's maiden name. Luckily we had the brooder already set up for the two Brahmas we had brought home two weeks ago. I ran to pick them up while Amandy put fresh shavings and food in for them. We plugged in a 250 watt red bulb and a 60 watt clear and we were good to go.
The box contained 27 peeping colored rangers. We didn't have a single shipping loss. We have a galvanized 18" trough feeder with the cover on it. We use a red saucer waterer with a quart widemouth mason jar. We also set up a hamster bottle waterer which they LOVE. It is more sanitary, no shavings get into it and they seem to love to play with the shiny ball valve that makes a little clicky noise.
We spent the afternoon in the garden with all of the birds and the bunny. We used a 20' pvc pipe to create a round pen for Cara the Bunny. We used 24" black plastic garden netting to create a play pen for her. She is a little ninja bunny but she was contained, for now. It was a pleasant afternoon of yard clean-up, planting veggies and playing with our flock.
12 of the baby meat chickens will be going with Sheryl leaving us with 15 to raise for the freezer.
Costs so far:
13 Chickes: $36
1st Bag of Feed: $18
Expected Finished Weight: 5 lbs.
Expected number of birds: 15
Total: 75 lbs of chicken
Store Cost for organic free range whole fryers: $3.59
Cost for 75# of chicken at the store: $270
