have our own chickens

They’re laying! Our little chickies are all grown up and laying eggs. My mom emailed me today to tell me so.

_{Now we’re going to have eggs coming out our ears. We have a LOT of hens!}

On Saturday my mom, little brother, little sister, Shawn and I took a drive up past where Gabe and Shawn were born and picked up some silkie chickens; two adults and two chicks. It was a really nice drive. It’s all farming country there, and the rolling fields were all corn, soy beans or cattle.

The woman showed us around her huge, old wooden barn, and all her animals, including her 15 horses. I almost died. There was a horse there that looked so similar to my mare Willow. I felt my heart stop.

There was a Percheron cross mare that loved Shawn. She swung her huuuuuge head over the dutch door and breathed all over him. She was so gentle.

The woman had a bunch of ducks, geese, chickens and some goats, including two angora goats that looked just like silky wool sheep. So cute!

So now my little sister has these silkie chickens, and she is over the moon. The two adults are white, but the chicks are black. She and my brother named the adults (keep in mind my brother is 7, and she is 11) Pyjamas and Meanie, and the chicks are Black Pearl and Bouncy.

Phineas has passed away, with Jim Moriarty now climbing the ranks to become head rooster. The Scraggly Roadrunner took Jim’s place as second in command and Chin Wu… is Chin Wu. Never any breaks for the bantams!

The Auracaunas we bought this spring appear to be all roosters ::sigh:: except for two hens. ALL ROOSTERS!

Last night, I took Zoe for a walk with Shawn in the Moby wrap, and on my way home, I did a double take. Someone put a sign up that says “Slow Chickens Ahead”. It’s a mystery where this sign came from, coz it’s on the telephone pole on our neighbor’s property… The same neighbors that hate us. As you can see in the picture, it’s not a homemade sign, either. Where it came from is a mystery!

Saddle up while I show you around…

Chick Pics
Our chicks as peeping little balls of day old fluff:
Chick pics 1

Chick pics 2

Outdoors as young adults:
Teenager hens

Our roosters:
Our banty, Chin Wu

One of the roosters, Jim Moriarty

Jim and a lady friend

Phineas Wordsworth, the lord of the chickens

Our aracauna rooster, The Scraggly Road Runner

and our aracauna hen:
The Bearded Dragon

Duck Photos
White ducks are called Pekins and the brown are Rouen. Amazingly, they were sent to us unsexed and all 10 are females!
Day old duckling

Ducks all grown up

Gosh, what did we name them… Let’s see… Pecan, Hazelnut, Pistachio, Peanut, Acorn, Walnut, Almond, Cashew, Chestnut and Pine Nut!

Everybody else!
Here we have:
Some of my mom’s bunnies

Our horse, Aspen

Our beloved special needs pony, Comet

One of the cats, Mason

One of our adopted kittens, Hank (he has two brothers but I was unable to get photos of them)

Sebastian, our male part pygmy goat

My little brother and sister’s dog, Sugar Dumpling, originally from Kentucky

My mom’s pot bellied pigs:
Molly and Wilbur

This is “Piggy”. Yes, that is his name!

Peggy

Peggy again, fast asleep in her house

That’s all, folks. (For now.) Hope you enjoyed that. (:

Looks like we’ll be having a community chicken butchering party come fall time.

(My mom sent me that article. She wasn’t willing this spring, but she’s changed her mind.)

Me and my family always considered getting chickens, then one of my moms friends got some and they were really sweet so we went to one of our markets in town and went to collect our six chickens the next day, for about 15 quid each. They have their own pen and because we live next to a forest we got an electric fence to protect them from foxes and stuff, ELECTRIC IS A MUST-HAVE works on all animals.

Our hens are really cute, we got them when they were 20 weeks old ish, they’ve been laying about 1 egg each per day, and they are delicious. We have not decided to have chicks yet.

Our chicks arrived today, all of them, plus the ducklings my mom ordered. What a LOT of them, too! So cute and fuzzy, all cheeping and sleepy. Gabriel got a big smile out of them, but then lost interest, lol.

As well, last week, my mom got in contact with the neighbor who had several groups of chicks for sale. Some were a few weeks old, and some were just a few days old, and she bought a miscellaneous bunch. They are Araucana chickens, and the older two she bought are crossed with silkie chickens. I don’t want to be mean, but these araucanas are UGGGGGGLY! But… they lay greenie-blue eggs, so that’s kind of cool, and my mom loves variety.

Last week we ordered our chicks, and they were supposed to arrive yesterday. My parents and Tommy and I put our order in together, but unfortunately the barred rock chicks are sold out for two weeks! The catalogue said to order early to avoid being sold out – well, how much earlier were we supposed to order?! lol!

Anyway, my mom placed the order and the guy at the feedmill said that they would send the barred rock chicks in two weeks. She confirmed that there wouldn’t be two separate shipping charges, which he said no, it would only be one shipping charge. Anyway… the mix up was she understood the rest of the chicks would be in yesterday, but instead they will all be in two weeks from yesterday. So it was a wasted trip as my dad, Gabriel and I went down expecting to pick them up. Oh well. So we’ll get our ordered chicks May 5th, which is better in a way because they will all be the same age rather than weeks apart. Instead of being excited about cute downy chicks, Gabriel spent his time staring at the John Deere tricycle that was displayed prominently hanging from the ceiling. I thought we wouldn’t make it out without a tantrum, but surprisingly, no tears or screams!

Our incubator eggs have hatched. About half were duds, which is pretty surprising considering we have enough roosters, and one died, but the rest hatched, happily without a problem.

We expected them to hatch on Sunday, so Thursday morning my mom removed the “flipper” – the part of the machine that automatically rotates the eggs – so that the chicks would have time to right themselves to peck their way out, and it is a good thing she did! Surprise! One chick hatched earlier than expected that same night! The rest all hatched Saturday morning into Sunday.

My mom and dad have purchased an incubator and started to brood some of their eggs. Today my mom comes across a very interesting snippet of information – apparently you can tell in advance from the shape of the egg what sex the chick is!

It goes like this:

If the egg is rounded or oval at the ends, it’s a hen. But if it is more pointed, it is a rooster.

Not sure how true or accurate this is… BUT the forum she read this on had several people chiming in saying it had never failed for them.

Just thought I’d pass it on. If it IS true, that is very very cool!

My dad was just to the feedmill and picked up a catalogue for both my mom and for Tommy and I.

I’m not sure how many we’re getting at this point as we decided against the layer variety like we were planning on last year, and we’re also thinking about having a few for meat chickens. I’m not entirely comfortable with butchering but Tommy doesn’t have any issues with it. It’s a “Jack Sprat” thing – he can do the actual butchering part, but can’t stand the thought of plucking. I have my reservations about having to do the butchering myself, but could pluck them no problem.

So we’ll see. We have a bit of time yet as the earliest they will arrive is March 24th.

Time to reopen! I am excited!

Tommy and I have been planning our coop and chicken yard already. I went to Frey’s Hatchery and while looking at the breeds, Gabriel climbs up on my lap and goes “buck buck buck buck buck.” Awwww!