They won't send just 6 chicks and charge you for the 25 (other people have thought of this before, you see!) because the chicks NEED the other 24 to keep them warm enough to survive the trip. If they tried to send you just 6 chicks, all 6 would die enroute from getting chilled. :( As you know, baby chicks MUST be kept warm by either a broody hen or by an artificial heat source, 24 hours a day, until they feather out and can keep themselves warm. Chilling and drafts are fatal to baby chicks. The reference to the roos 'to be disposed of' is because most people who are out to order chickens for eggs and/or meat usually don't have much use for the extra roos the hatchery provides, since most are of the more ornamental breeds and not the meat breeds--so they don't dress out to any kind of weight. If you are happy with getting a few 'mystery birds' (which can be great fun if you are keeping them for pets, and they aren't all ALWAYS roos) in with your order, by all means do the hatchery order and see what you'll get. :) Like I said, if you only want a few birds of a specific breed, advertise in you local paper or feed store to offer to split a chick order, or search around for a breeder. By 'Buffingtons', do you mean Buff Orpingtons? I love those heavy, fluffy breeds... :) Velvet ~:>

Emyers, I second Nelda's vote, start off with day-old chicks. I ordered from McMurray hatchery my first time and all the chicks showed up alive and healthy so in that respect they're pretty good. As far as the quality of the breed I'd rather go with Ideal Hatchery. My RIRs from McMurray are consistent layers but they lay small to medium eggs and RIR are suppose to lay large. Also the Americuana roo from them doesn't have the earmuffs they're suppose to have. My Americaunas from Ideal are beautiful and are breed standard. So for quality of breed I'd go for Ideal hatchery. Plus they allow smaller orders. As for raising chicks, they definitely don't need a chicken to raise them. In fact if you stick a bunch of chicks in with a chicken that is not it's mom chances are she'll kill them. Here's how I raise my day old chicks... First of all you need a brooder box. Chicks need to be kept very warm at first, 95 degrees the first week and then decreasing 5 degrees for every week after that until they are feathered out. I usually get my chicks in the summer because it makes it much easier to keep them warm. I built my brooder box myself and I designed it with a removable bottom so I could let the chicks be on the grass and eat bugs during the day. (you shouldn't let them free range until the are almost full grown or they will get picked off by hawks. It's basically a 3'x4'x3' two by four frame with hardware cloth sides, a hinged plywood top, a bottom that connects with 4 latches, and my nephews training wheels attached to two corners of the bottom so I can move it around easily. At night I cover the whole thing with a old comforter. I pull back one part of the comforter and I put one of those radiant dish heaters up against the hardware cloth to keep them warm. I always keep chick starter food in the brooder box and plenty of clean water. If the chicks are crowded or bored they can peck each other bloody. Putting them on grass during the day alleviates that and to help at night I throw a bunch of grass clippings on the bottom. If you do this, it'll probably keep them from starting to peck which is good because once they start they are really hard to break of the habit. When they are a couple weeks old I add some roosts to the brooder box so the get used to roosting. If you don't do this when they are young they may not roost at all. This kind of brooder box also helps when introducing new chicks to an older flock. I did that this summer and it worked great. The big chickens would come everyday to check out the chicks through the sides of the brooder box so they really got used to them early on. I've heard some horror stories about big chickens killing chicks when people tried to put them in together. They say to wait until the chicks are grown before trying to blend the two flocks or there will be trouble. But because my chicks and chickens got to visit with each other everyday I was able to combine the chicks with the chickens at 6 weeks. I watched them closely when I combined them and gave them a lot of supervision for the first week or so but they did really well. The chicks were definitely bottom of the totem pole but beyond the occasional "watch it youngun'" peck from a chicken everyone got along well. Another bit of advice, when you build nesting boxes build them with the tops at 45 degree angles so chickens can't decide to sleep up there. I think 18 inches wide is a good width for the nesting boxes. My coop came with our house and the nesting boxes were built with flat tops and half of them are only 12 inches wide. The chickens like to walk around on top of the boxes before they go in to lay which means chicken poop to clean up. Also they all fight over the bigger boxes, sometimes they're be two or three hens smooshed into one of them. My nesting boxes also came with nailed on fronts that go about a quarter of the way up. This keeps the hay in the nesting boxes well but makes it a hassle to clean out. I plan on rebuilding them when I get the time and when I do, they'll all be 18 inches wide with slanted tops and hinged fronts for easy cleaning. Okay and for the end of this book of a post. Chicken poop doesn't really have a strong odor if it gets mixed with litter. It's only when a bunch of it is on it's own that it gets stinky. (which is why I'm always cleaning off the top of the stupid nesting boxes!) My hen house is in a stall of my barn which is about 300 feet from the house and I have never gotten the slightest whiff of the chickens at the house. Actually though, I usually don't smell anything until I'm in the barn. If there's a strong smell in the barn then I know I really need to clean out the coop. To sum everything up most of my work goes into setup to make my life easier. The training wheels on the brooder box keep me from killing my back. The detachable bottom means I can hose down the bottom instead of scraping it out. The grass clippings greatly reduce the amount of stuck on poop. The hardware cloth sides mean I can combine the flocks sooner which means half the work. The new design on the nesting boxes means easier clean-up. You get the idea Jenica

Congrats on the chicks and enjoy them! :) I've never ordered from a hatchery myself--I've gone the feed store route, too--but McMurray and Ideal are both long-time hatcheries with great reputations. Both have websites, so you can look through them for more info. Usually chicks are shipped via the USPS, and it's a good idea to notify your local post office that you are expecting a shipment of live animals--chicks. They are usually pretty good about notifying you right away when the chicks come in, whether it's Sunday, 3AM or whatever--so have your brooder box warmed up and ready! :) I'd also have some unflavored Pedialyte on hand to give the chicks an electrolyte boost, it's a good thing after the stress of shipping. Be prepared to worry about the little ones while they are in transit, though. If you do a search on something like 'ordering chicks' on the Farm Forum you should find several threads from past hatchery clients--it'll give you an idea of what others have experienced. Most hatcheries have a minimum order of 25 chicks, with extra chicks added "for warmth"...guess which sex the extra chicks are? :) They won't do less than 25 because they need to ship that many so the chicks don't get chilled and die. Steel yourself to some losses no matter what, though, it happens. Enjoy! :) Velvet ~:>

I can highly reccommend Murry McMurray, also. I have had excellent and very healthy birds from them. Been ordering for years. One hatchery near Kansas City said they ship day old chicks all the way to Moscow...so what we do is no big deal. Good idea to ask your PO to call you, so you can pick them up, though. I really don't like the idea of them riding around in a route vehicle with the widow open even though I order for delivery the last week of April. Have your brooder all warmed up in advance, so they can get food water and warmth as soon as possible. DPallas...they love fresh goats milk when they first arrive. My grandmother would feed her chicks the excess milk....yum...nothing like milk fed fryers.