This year for my birthday, I skipped the practical.
Leapt over the moderately impractical.
And headed straight for the crazy.
Yup.
Chickens.
15 of them.
The *15* wasn’t part of the plan, though… honestly I was thinking about half as many. But when you order chicks by mail it’s not quite like Amazon.
So, at the recommendation of the nice chicken-wise lady on the other end of the phone, we ordered 15 baby chicks to be delivered to our local post office, approximately 48 hours after hatching.
Did you know that when a chick is born it still has part of the yolk sac in its belly to utilize for nutrition? So a newly hatched chick can go without food and water for several days?
Me neither.
For the chicken novice with no local connections to chicken farmers (or even a backyard flock owner), suddenly ordering a passel of chicks online seemed the most reasonable option.
And so, one week after my husband agreed handle the biggest obstacle in my chicken-owning dream, the chicken coop, I was burning up the interwebs trying to determine which little fuzzy poultry friends would be its inhabitants.
And suddenly 15 didn’t seem like nearly enough. 
So many breeds to choose from. And, because I wanted to get them in pairs, meant I needed to narrow my choices to seven.
The final decision, due to the fact that I have approximately zero prior knowledge of chick-purchasing, was made completely based on the recommendations of others: the chicken-lady at the hatchery and the search results of dozen or so delirious hours of “best family-friendly chicken” googling…
two Black Australorps, three Buff Orpingtons, two Easter Eggers, two Brown Leghorns, three Red Stars, two Barred Rocks, and a Delaware. 
Whew.
And 15 chicks meant one for everyone. And while not *everyone* was thrilled to have their very own chicken, most everyone else was crazy excited.
Magnolia named her Buff Orpington Astrid, Clementine named hers Juniper and I named mine Marigold.
Okay, I named all three but I think they would have chosen those names if given the chance in say, five years. You know, after the if-it’s-not-Trolls-or-Moana-it-ain’t-nothin’ phase.
Poppy named her Easter Egger Beatrice and Jude named his Rosemary.
Sophie named her Barred Rock Charlotte and Victoria named hers Eleanor.
Isabelle named her Brown Leghorn Matilda and Zach named his Genevieve.
Lula named her Red Star Georgia, Shepherd named his Hazel and Chris, with a little help from everyone else, named his Olive.
Vivienne named her Black Australorp Mabel and Dalton named his Wilhelmina. (After everyone vetoed his idea of naming her Byrd.)
And Asher named his Delaware Harriet.
Hatched on July 10th and in our hot little hands before sunrise on the 12th, we’ve been having a blast with them ever since.
Minus the poop.
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