This morning we got our bird shipment from Dunlap Hatchery in Caldwell Idaho. They are my favorite hatchery since they're the 2nd oldest in the country and also a short shipment distance away which means MUCH LESS stress on the birds. With turkeys this is an important consideration since they can be more fragile than most any other bird at a few days old.

We got 15 Bronze turkeys, 4 White Pekin ducks, 4 Buff ducks, and 2 White Chinese geese. I plan on the geese being our guard dogs for the yard so they will get to wander once they are old enough. This is one of the geese. Both of them are extremely active and much larger than the ducks and turkeys, for now. The turkeys will out size them by the end of the year for sure which is the exact reason I have them, BIG birds with a lot of meat for the freezer.

At 6am this morning the post office called that the birds were in. Since it is 1/2 a mile to the post office it made pickup a breeze, it took all of 5 minutes round trip. The boys were both obviously still asleep and @stryeyz was still getting ready for work so I put the box in the dark-ish pantry where the birds all fell asleep. Finally around 10am the boys were up and fed and I had the brooder ready to go, so we went to get the babies out of the box and into the brooder.

First to go into the brooder were the 2 big blundering geese. Geese have a nature about them that they run without looking where they are going and plow over most anything or anyone in their way. J loves how fuzzy and soft they are.

R was very excited to touch the goose. He wasn't sure at first but once he touched it he wanted to hold it but his holding is a bit too rough so he just got a to touch.

The duck was a bit more manageable for R but he still was too rough to hold it, hence the tear streams.

One of the turkeys and a duck beneath the heat lamp feeling a bit tired. It is incredibly funny to watch a baby bird nod off in the middle of doing something. I have seen some birds nod off so hard they roll on their back, little legs in the air, then eventually wake up and shake it off.

Everybody in the brooder with food, water, heat, and bedding. The brooder is an old chicken house that was given to us and it works perfect as a brooder. It is nice and secure, small enough to easily heat, and small enough that it forces me to shift the birds to a new area at a proper time.

R is fascinated with the birds. He stares and tries to touch them through the mesh. J has been around our prior chicks so he is not nearly as phased as R.

Whether the baby birds or the full size chickens, R is really fascinated.

The weather is going to be getting hotter over the weekend so I will have the heat lamps set up on a timer to be on only when cooler. Within a week they probably wont even need the heat lamps at all.

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