Our Right to Self Reliance

One of the cheapest, and perhaps most fun, ways to get a batch of baby chickens is to order “assorted chicks” from almost any hatchery.  When you open the shipping box, an entire rainbow of chicks looks up at you, and they can be any of the breeds that hatchery carries in their catalogue.  Of course, you don’t have to figure out what breeds they are as baby chickens pretty much are all raised alike…but it’s fun to try!

Usually your choice is assorted standards or assorted bantams.  That will help some with sorting breeds, as there are some breeds that only come as bantams.  They are called true bantams, and have no standard sized chicken counterpart.  The most likely ones you’d find in a batch of mixed bantams would be silkies and Sebrights , but it’s not impossible that you could have a few Japanese bantams , depending upon which hatchery you ordered from.  I seriously doubt that you’d ever find any Vorwerk bantams , tho!

Assorted standards could be just about anybody.  You can start guess by looking at their heads; only certain breeds have an extra lump on top…mostly Polish, in various coulours though White Crested Black seems to be the most common.  Polish tend to be good layers, so if you have straight run, which means unsexed, chicks you may well want to keep them for the eggs.  The bantam WCB Polish I’ve had from Belt Hatchery were crazy laying machines.  They laid eggs that you would buy in the store as medium size, quite a feat for a bird that size!

Next you would look at their legs.  Are they fuzzy?  How fuzzy?  Brahma babies will have down down the outside of their legs and a bit on the outside toe.  Cochin babies will have furrier legs with the outside toe fairly furry plus some on the middle toe.

After that, you’re about down to the list of possible breeds that the hatchery carries and sorting by colour.  If you’re pretty sure you’ve figured it out, check here for chick photos of many, many breeds and see if the visual lines up.

Keep them warm, fed and watered, and clean and watch them grow!  If you possibly can, take lots of picture to start building your own chick breed photo reference for next year and to share.