2022's chickens

 Last week, the first batch of broiler chicks for 2022 arrived at this little place here.  Only 4 were lost in shipping (aka DOA), which is waaayyy better than what my experience was last year.  Last year, I almost couldn't deal with raising meat birds, all because of two shipments in a row of chicks that were 95-98% dead on arrival.  The worst shipping fatality rate I'd ever dealt with, and while the USPS tried to blame it on the hatchery, looking up the tracking history of both those shipments told a different story.  You can't hold chicks for 36+ hours in one location, then send them on to two more locations between hatchery and  end destination and have them arrive alive.  Not when they need to hatch, ship, and be received in less than 72 hours.  

Was it my fault those poor birds croaked before they really got to live?  NO.  18 years of getting chicks through the mail with a very very low loss rate (something like a dozen birds out of HUNDREDS) told me that I wasn't to blame.  But still, those needless deaths weighed heavy on my conscience.  

Not only was it depressing at the time, it also resulted in not enough chicken in the freezer to get through until this summer.  Even though I ended up finally getting replacement chicks that the USPS didn't hold in transit and actually arrived alive in July last year, it wasn't enough and I had to (try) to buy chicken from the grocery store over the winter

Did I mention it was depressing and guilt inducing? I was very hesitant to order chicks this year.  However, grocery store chicken just wasn't going to be acceptable. The quality, the prices, the taste, the texture, the inconsistent supply. . . 

So in February I said a prayer, reminded myself that I (and the hatchery) hadn't done anything wrong, and ordered two batches of broilers.  One to arrive in early April and be butchered before our annual Grandkids Week vacation, and the other to arrive in late July, after Grandkids Week is over and I've had a chance to recover from it.  LOL.

April's birds are here!  Other than the 4 who didn't survive the journey (refund is in processing from the hatchery for those; awesome customer service), they are healthy and growing rapidly.

After getting them settled into the brooder on the morning they arrived, and then going to work at the horse farm, I stopped at the farm store to see what they might have in the way of pullet chicks.  I wanted to get just 4 to raise up to be next fall and winter's egg layers for me. Because of the troubles I'd had with April chick orders in 2021, I'd decided to get my pullet chicks from whatever the farm store offered rather than ordering specific ones with my broiler chicks.  Just in case. At least that way I was guaranteed live egg layer chicks in time for them to mature and be laying by fall.

Luck had it that the farm store had also received batches of chicks that day, and I was able to not only get 4 pullet chicks (2 Ameracuna and 2 Blue Plymouth Rock), but also purchase 4 Cornish cross broiler chicks.  So my count of birds for the freezer in June isn't down afterall.

2022 is off to a way better start, chicken-wise, than 2021 was.  Hooray!