Mark your calendar: Breakfast with the Babies, introducing the public to the first shipment of baby chicks, is February 6, 7:30 a.m. at St. Elmo Feed & Seed

For anyone who has lived on a farm or raised a flock of backyard chickens, nothing says "Spring" more emphatically than the chirping of newly hatched baby chicks, so soft and furry, warm, alive--and loud.  

And on Friday morning, February 6 at 7:30, local country farmers, Midtown Mobile chicken enthusiasts and ordinary people who like the sight, feel and sound of coops full of such breeds as Silver Pencial Egyptian Fayoumis or Rhode Island Reds are invited to "Breakfast with the Babies" at St. Elmo Feed & Seed, 9001 Highway 90 West.

The event lets customers enjoy doughnuts and coffee, fruit and juice as they visit with each other and check out the 2-day-old chicks.  Tracy McCarter of the St. Elmo store will be on hand to answer questions and provide guidance in raising chicks in south Alabama.  Her parents, Fred and Madelyn, now retired, began selling baby chicks, ducks, geese, guineas, bantams and turkeys more than a decade ago, generally about 3,000 each year.  

McCarter said the south Mobile County store is one of the few state-licensed poultry dealers on the Gulf Coast and that information and a list of which breeds will be arriving each Friday through mid-April will be available on website www.stelmofeed.com or by calling 957-2177.

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