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I’ve ordered more chickens…(to be specific…recently hatched baby chicks)…..

They’re all different named breeds…..

…..(and they all have pretty colored egg shells)…..

I’ve probably ordered more than I should have………….I’m quite sure I did…..

…..(you’d be surprised how much baby chicks cost these days)…..

But like I’ve said before…I don’t do designer clothes or Prada shoes…..

I do land…..

And apparently…I buy chickens too…..

I’ve bought chicks from this hatchery for many years…..

I remember my parents buying from this same hatchery when I was a child…..

*****(Stromberg’s Hatchery)*****

Apparently they’ve been in business since 1921…..

When I was young…I remember us all driving to the train station in Willoughby, Ohio to pick up the shipment of baby chicks…..

…..it was a big family outing…..

It’s handled a little differently now…..

There are U.S. Postal Service jets involved…along with USPS trucks…and they ultimately arrive at our local post office for pick up…..

Every time I’ve gone early in the morning to pick up our order of chicks…they’ve been sitting on the post office counter…..

…..where they are entertainment for the postal workers…..

These are the pullets that I ordered this year:

	Easter Egger™ Chickens – (Females)
	Olive Egger Chickens – (Females)
	Buff Orpington Chickens – (Females)
	Cuckoo Marans Chickens – (Females)
	French Cuckoo Marans Chickens – (Females)
	French Black Copper Marans Chickens – (Females)
	Welsummer Chickens – (Females)
	Speckled Sussex Chickens – (Females)
	Barnevelder Chickens – (Females)

Every hatchery that I’ve ever bought from has a disclaimer…..

They say they can only guarantee pullets (female chicks) with a ninety percent accuracy…..

Now I know…(through my daughter’s 4-H training)…..

…..that sexing young chicks is Not That Difficult…(my girls were very good at it)…and there are a number of ways to do it…..

Maybe I should do a post on how to figure out a boy chick from a girl chick?…..

…..(would it be too much TMI?…probably)…..

Unfortunately…as with much of the livestock on a farm…..

…..the girls are more desirable for the majority of the population…(and they’re more expensive too)…..

I’m not taking away from the roosters, and rams, and stallions………….they have their place and need too…..

But if it’s milk and eggs and babies you want…you need the majority to be females…..

So…unfortunately…that leaves the hatcheries with a surplus of baby boys (cockerels)…..

Even though I’ve paid extra for pullets…I figure the ten percent “error rate” of cockerals comes with the price…..

…..(and their early morning crowing later on)…..

And Hey…I’ll have a new generation of purebred roosters…(the old boys better look out)…..

Oh I forgot to mention…I ordered a few more Runner Ducks too…just for fun…because they’re so silly…..

The chicks won’t be arriving for a little while…I had to wait for a date when all of my ordered breeds would be available at the same time…..

So they’re actually due to arrive (I think) the third week in July…..

…..except for the ducklings…the hatchery said they’d keep me posted on their hatching schedule…..

And so…we wait…for babies to hatch…..

Oops…I just re-read this post…doesn’t it look like I ordered double of the Cuckoo Maran pullets?…..

…..Oops…..

I’d say something trite like…”that’s just cuckoo”…but I won’t…because I’m trying to be mature…..