Chicks!

Last Tuesday I made the drive to Webster City, Iowa, home of Murray McMurray Hatchery, and became the proud owner of ten new baby chicks. Murray McMurray has been hatching baby chicks since 1917 and is the largest producer of rare and exotic breeds in the US - every day they hatch out something like 23,000 baby birds and they have over 100 different varieties to choose from. While they don’t allow tours of the hatchery, here’s a great video that shows what goes on behind the scenes.

While the bulk of their chicks get shipped across the country, they do allow customers to pick chicks up directly at the hatchery, and since I’m lucky enough to live within driving distance, I drive down nearly every year to get a few chicks to add to the flock. The annual quest for baby chicks, visiting the hatchery, and the ride home with a box of peeping fluffies on my lap is, to me, one of the best parts of having chickens.

Box of Peeping Fluffies

Getting acquainted with one of the new Hipster Chicks in the car

During the ride home, everybody had a drink by getting their beaks dipped in a jar lid full of water. Otherwise, they just rode along in their box and peeped a lot - no doubt because they were cold. We had the car heater cranked, but there’s no way we could duplicate the 105 degree body temperature of a mama hen. The peeping stopped pretty quickly once we got home and I tucked everybody under the heater in the big blue bin - their new home.

Everybody slept through the night but they were all up bright and early the next morning - already pecking at the crumbles I’d scattered on the floor of the bin. It was only then that I discovered that one of the new babies had a problem. Roz the Rhode Island Red could only move around by hobbling around on her hocks. Her toes were uselessly clenched into tight “fists.” This condition is somewhat common, although I’ve never seen it before in any of my chicks. It’s called “Crooked Toe” or “Curled Toe” and can be caused by improper incubation temperature, vitamin deficiency, or injury in the egg or shortly after hatching. I think that I didn’t notice that there was anything wrong with this little girl on the ride home because everybody was newly hatched, thus a little wobbly on their feet - plus with everybody packed into a tiny box there really wasn’t much of any opportunity for anybody to walk around.

Fortunately, because a baby chick’s bones are malleable, this condition can sometimes be reversed by spreading the chick’s toes out and holding them in place until they naturally stay in that position. I accomplished this with Roz by making her a little orthotic boot out of band aids. I also moved Roz into her own box—she was not doing well in the hubbub of nine other active chicks in the blue bin. I’ve got great faith that this sweet baby is going to walk, and that in a few weeks she’ll be living with the other chicks - so cross your fingers, direct some healing thoughts toward Roz, and stay tuned for that story. (Which is now here! - RCB)

Roz: Curled Toe

Roz with her orthotic boot

The other chicks are all happy, healthy and growing like weeds. They’re already outgrowing the blue bin and are just a week old. Tomorrow they’ll move into the luxurious plastic kiddie pool! And who are the other chicks? Well, I suppose it’s time for introductions:

Gilda and Zelda are Whiting True Blues. Yep, they’re both really the same breed. While chickens of this breed may have a variety of feather pattern, the one thing they have in common is the production of blue eggs. This blue-egg-laying breed was a side project of Dr. Tom Whiting, a poultry geneticist who puts most of his time and effort into producing chickens with perfect feathers for the fly-tiers of the world.

Daisy and Venus are Silver Laced Wyandottes. This breed was developed in the US in the 1870’s and it is one of those old breeds that almost disappeared. The American Livestock Conservancy considered it to be an endangered heritage breed until it was removed from that list in 2016. While silver is the original Wyandotte color, the American Poultry Association now recognizes a plethora of other colors. When Daisy and Venus join the Hipster Hens in the big coop this fall, they’ll meet their cousins, Rose and Valerie the Gold Laced Wyandottes.

Minerva and Pandora are Rose Comb Brown Leghorns. Leghorns were first introduced to the US from Italy in the early 1800’s. “Leghorn” is a corruption of “Livorno,” the Italian port city from which they were originally exported. While the White Leghorn is the most common chicken in the world, Brown Leghorns are a bit more rare. And Rose Comb Brown Leghorns are even rarer. You can tell just by looking at these little girls that they are rare birds, indeed.

Persephone and Penelope are Speckled Sussex chicks. The Sussex is a British breed and has been around since the early 1800’s. While there are a variety of color variants, the speckled is the oldest. Squawky the Speckled Sussex is, hands-down, the most personable and sociable Hipster Hen in the coop, so it will be interesting to see if P & P follow in her footsteps.

And finally we have Elara the Barred Rock and little Roz the Rhode Island Red. There have been four fine Barred Rock Hipster Hens prior to Elara - and they always were at the top of the pecking order, so we’ll see what life brings to little Elara. And sweet Roz is starting life with a handicap but is showing a lot of tenacity. I’m sure that I’ll have a lot more to say about her in the near future. Stay tuned for more stories about all of these little girls as they grow up and join the flock.