I did a live video on Facebook of me opening the box. So many colors! No dead chicks (they all survived shipping). I did a separate live stream of me putting them into the brooder - one chick at a time, dipping each beak into the warm water so they could get a drink right away. It was so cute to see them all running around. I can't imagine having them stuffed in a little tote or one of those store-bought brooders. I think people who put them in tiny spaces really miss out on the adorable padda-padda-padda of chicken feet running on paper towel.
We got a total of 54 chicks. No ducklings or turkeys, all chicken varieties.
Everything looked good after about two hours, so I stopped the live stream and took the chicks one at a time to check them over and photograph each one to help me ID breeds. You can find the photos HERE if you want to give a breed guess, or see what I've come up with for what they might be.
Everyone looked pretty good, but we had one straggler that just stood in one place for hours. I was worried about that one.
I left them alone for a few hours, and when the kids got home from school they were excited to look at the new babies. Unfortunately, #4 pointed one out that was down. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong with that one. It was laying on the ground near the light, but it wasn't warm. I pulled it out and sat with it near the space heater to warm up (slowly). It perked up enough to cough up water. Then it seemed to be having trouble breathing. I stayed with it for an hour, but there was nothing I could do. I had to deal with kids, so I put the little chick in a box, made it comfortable, and set it near the light in the brooder so it would at least be warm. When I came back to check on it 30-45 minutes later, it had passed away. I have to wonder if the poor baby just inhaled water at some point. It was fine when it arrived, and there was nothing wrong with it when I took photos. Something had to have happened between photos and after school. I'm pretty sure it's a freak thing and that I wouldn't have been able to prevent it. It was a yellow chick with a puff on the head (Polish?).
On the good side, the weak looking chick seems to be doing better now. I noticed the chicks had started to crowd around the lights. Odd, because I had made sure they were set perfectly to produce 100-degrees under the lamps, but I lowered them as low as I could without having the light literally on the paper towels, and they were still crowding. Under them the thermometers were only reading 80. I called Tony and he agreed to pick up higher wattage red bulbs on his way home.
Tony worked close, and then had to go shopping after work, so it was 11:30 before he got home. I put the new lights in and raised the fixtures. I stayed up to make sure they weren't going to bake or be too cold. They seem settled in.