104 ~ Special deliveries

Happy Good Friday everyone (odd name for such a day, given what happened; as I understand it, the "INRI" posted above the crucifix is Latin for 'TGIF').

  Speaking of death and renewal, I recently dove into ordering through the mail some chicks to re-establish my flock of Dominique laying hens - replacements, a new generation, after the last of my girls were wiped out last summer by what was probably a weasel.  The Wisconsin hatchery I order from no longer allows you to come collect your day-old chicks (probably to reduce the risk of introducing outside disease to the hatchery). They will now only mail chicks to you.  In this brave and frantic new world of life lived on the instantaneous, virtual run by text, email, and streaming, I find comfort in the fact that I can order baby birds through the mail.  It's as if these small, fragile downies with a postage stamp on their butts have the power to slow the world a bit, to bring it back to something more real and thus more dear than a thousand Instagram posts.  And baby chickens are still something, thank God, you can't get through Amazon.

The hatchery’s minimum order is twelve, since that apostolic number is the smallest cluster of puffball bodies needed to keep each other warm on their journey through the US postal service (the calculus that worked to get young Christianity going also seems to work for chickens). Although I don't quite need a dozen, eleven Dominique pullets (young hens) and one cockerel it was.  My housemate Grant later suggested we also get a duck, since everyone could use a yard and guard duck. Sure, of course, and so I called the hatchery back and added one duckling to the order.  Shipping was scheduled for a recent Thursday, with delivery one or two days later.  

Some aspects of the biology of birds, and especially precocial species such as chickens and ducks, make it possible for a hatchery to commerce in chicks through the mail, and it also makes timing crucial. One is that chickens and ducks, in contrast to altricial species like robins and sparrows, hatch with an insulating coat of down, rather than naked, and can almost immediately stand, walk and find their own food. In addition, they retain remnants of the yolk in their bellies, allowing them to survive the first couple days of their post-egg life without food or drink. Finally, the incubation period of an egg is precisely characteristic for a given species or breed of bird, and the clock toward hatching only starts ticking when the egg is first warmed. In fact, a hatchery can keep a freshly laid, fertilized egg in suspended animation for some days by keeping it cool, and then start the incubation clock by putting the egg in an incubator. This allows them to give a precise shipping date well in advance, so you can be ready for the arrival of your chicks, and not be away at the Grand Canyon or your nephew's wedding when the cheeping box arrives.

Still, even the best, er, laid plans can go awry. With shipping promised on a Thursday, I expected the thirteen wee ones to arrive, like Moses in his basket, on Friday, or Saturday at the latest, and so arranged my week accordingly.  It thus threw me for a bit of a loop when early Wednesday morning, the day before the scheduled ship date, my sister-in-law Kathy (who shares my last name) called with the news that the Dodgeville post office was urgently trying to reach me, and had found her along the way.  Anyone remember the Far Side cartoon, “You have cows, Mr. Farnsworth”?  Well the message from the post office was “You have birds - HERE, NOW - Mr. Robichaud”.

        Actually, the message Kathy understood and relayed is that the Dodgeville post office had a bird waiting for me, one duck to be precise. What the hell, had the duckling been sent ahead, solo, like a scout or point man?

            With my day already jammed, I called the post office in hopes they could deliver said fowl and save me the trip. A pleasant if slightly anxious woman answered, and our conversation went something like this:

 “Hi. I understand you have a bird there for me.“

“Yes, a baby duck. I’ve been trying to reach you. Can you come collect it?”

“No other birds, just the duck?”

“Just the duck.”

“What happens if I can’t pick it up?”

“It will die.”

“Oh. ok...”

“However, I see you live near Barneveld. We could put the duck on this morning's truck with the other mail for Barneveld, and you could pick it up at the post office there when they open at nine. Would that help?”

“That would be fantastically helpful. Let’s do that, and thanks so much for your efforts on this. I think I’ll name the duck after you.”

“[Laughing] Sure, that would be nice. My name is Brandy.”

  An hour later, the clerk at the Barneveld post office handed me Brandy (photo above). Back home, I opened the box to find a lovely, miniature, peeping duck, not much bigger than my thumb, nestled in some bedding with a disposable hand warmer - its temporary mom.  I transferred Brandy to a larger box with water, food, other warmth, and the wee web-footed one settled right in.

The next day, Thursday, the saga continued, when the twelve little chickens were, as far as I knew, still due to ship. By this time I was on an overnight trip (with Brandy at home in the care of Grant), and early in the morning in my motel room I checked email and saw an auto-message from the hatchery that another order had already shipped, the day before.  What, early birds again??  Back on the phone to the Dodgeville post office, this time with a Savannah instead of Brandy, and once again it was, yes, we have birds for you, and yes, you need to pick them up ASAP. And so within a few hours Birdman here was pulling into the Dodgeville post office to collect a second shipment of birds. As soon as I stepped into the lobby I could hear cheeping from somewhere behind the counter, which I translated as "Take us home, take us home!".  These little ones had traveled coach  - crammed for mutual warmth in the same size box that Brandy and hand warmer had traveled solo.  Back home, they were soon contentedly hugger-mugger with their cousin the duck.

Everyone is getting along well, and growing well. If you spend a lot of time with them their first couple days of life, they imprint on you as "mom" (and if not, it might be a hand warmer, or the mailman, they follow around the rest of their lives), and that period was both successful and fun. These freshly hatched 'Easter eggs' are some of the best things I've gotten in the mail since my pandemic relief check - and more fun.