Amelia, Easter Egger, love those puffy cheeks!
(left to right) Barbara, Rosie, Nellie
Nellie in front, Amelia and Rosie behind.
Barbara, Rosie, Amelia and Nellie: enjoying some time outside the box.
Chicks With Some Grass, written by Nora
Nellie Amelia Rosie and Barbara did not like a little bit of grass. Then Rosie saw a piece of grass. She had it in her beak and they liked it (*note from Mom: the other chicks chased Rosie). ps chicks do not like grass- hens do like grass.
An additional note from Mom: One hour later the chicks are enjoying the patch of "grass" and dirt so much they are trying to dust bathe in it. Silly chickens!
Two Weeks Old
First day out in the yard. You'll notice the fence behind where the big hens hang out.
Barbara the Brave sitting on Nora's lap.
(left to right) Barbara, Nellie, Amelia, Rosie
Introducing a New Blogger: Nora
My six year old daughter Nora will now be posting on this blog. We will share the work at first, but my hope is that she can take over someday (these fingers are tired!).
Meet the New Chicks
Here are the new ladies within hours of their arrival they were already eating, drinking and sleeping.
More pictures below:
Cornelia (Nellie), Barnevelder
Barbara, Barred Rock
Briana Rose (Rosey), Easter Egger
Amelia, Easter Egger
Adding to the Flock
With the decision to not sell the house and the new fence for the chickens, it took no time at all to order a new set of chicks. We were able to get them before it was too late and only had about a week to wait before their arrival. Thank goodness for that because our 6 year old asked about their arrival about 5 times a day.
We ordered this set of chicks from a different company than the first set of chicks- Meyer Hatchery. They would arrive on Tuesday, August 6th from Ohio. We originally thought we'd get three chicks, but ended up getting four. This will bring our total number of hens to eight. This time around we thought less about production and more about color. We wanted some pretty hens with pretty eggs.
Here's what we chose:
One Barnevelder Hen. This is a Dutch breed that lays dark brown "chocolate" colored eggs. It is also a very pretty bird with a black head and neck and a gold laced body and tail.
One Barred Rock Hen. This hen is a black and white and lays brown eggs. We chose this hen to replace the little hen we lost from our last flock. The barred rock is thought to have been bred from a Dominique hen so they share the same kind of coloring.
Two Easter Eggers. Easter eggers come in all different feather colors, have a muff and beard and lay green, blue, or pink eggs. We're excited to see what color feathers and eggs our hens will have!
Making a Greener Pasture
We've wanted to add more hens to our flock for some time now, but were delayed in this as we attempted to sell our house. We eventually came to the conclusion that it was not time to sell and thought about how we might make our current 1/3 of an acre work better for our current hens and a possible flock expansion.
It turns out this was pretty simple. We purchased 200 feet of farm fencing from Tractor Supply and spent an afternoon hammering in stakes and putting up fencing in the yard. The girls now have a significantly larger area to roam around in and surprisingly have NOT destroyed our grass!
The ladies free range all day, from 6am till 8pm. They know to head back to the coop in the evening and have found some nice spots to hide when predators (mainly our resident red tail hawk) are nearby. The first couple of days I thought for sure I'd come home to four dead or missing hens, but it turns out the ladies are pretty good at taking care of themselves.
We've enjoyed watching them in the evening as they chase bugs and run around. They are so tired at the end of the day that they often will come over and sit on my lap to have a pre-bed nap.
While we were not able to sell our house and purchase something else with more land, we are finding that our little 1/3 acre in suburbia is turning out to be just perfect for us and our flock.
It turns out this was pretty simple. We purchased 200 feet of farm fencing from Tractor Supply and spent an afternoon hammering in stakes and putting up fencing in the yard. The girls now have a significantly larger area to roam around in and surprisingly have NOT destroyed our grass!
The ladies free range all day, from 6am till 8pm. They know to head back to the coop in the evening and have found some nice spots to hide when predators (mainly our resident red tail hawk) are nearby. The first couple of days I thought for sure I'd come home to four dead or missing hens, but it turns out the ladies are pretty good at taking care of themselves.
We've enjoyed watching them in the evening as they chase bugs and run around. They are so tired at the end of the day that they often will come over and sit on my lap to have a pre-bed nap.
While we were not able to sell our house and purchase something else with more land, we are finding that our little 1/3 acre in suburbia is turning out to be just perfect for us and our flock.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)