Four Chickens to One Chicken to Five Chickens?

So, we are currently engaged in the Great Chick Buying Hunt 2008. We want to get more chicks this year. We want to fill up the coop again. It’s so sad to have just one chicken–she is lonely. The only difficulty with new chicks will be introducing the babies to Rosie in a way that she will take to them. But, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Right now I’m trying to get the breeds I want. I want a Blue Cochin, a Golden-Laced Wyandotte, a Silver-Laced Wyandotte (this is the breed Rosie is), and a Welsummer or a Blue-Laced Wyandotte.

Of course, you can’t go to the chicken department store and pick them off the rack. You either have to go to a feed store to get them (which is cuter than anything) or order them. The problem with feed stores is that they may or may not have the breeds you want. On the other hand, the online company I want to order from is not taking orders at this moment–because too many other people want to do the same thing and they need to catch up. The reason I need to go through a certain company is that they allow you to order in quantities less than 25–which is what the other places insist on. Sigh.

So, I’ve been calling around to different feed stores, trying to find the combo of breeds I want. Another issue you have to add to the juggle is that you have to get the chicks within a week of each other or else the older ones will peck at the younger ones (hence the term “pecking order”). Bullying starts young with chickens.

So, I’m here, an expectant chicken mom, trying to figure out when my babies will finally be here.