22???

We lost so many birds to predators last summer, that we've been down to 10: 1 nasty, mean white crested black Polish rooster, 7 assorted hens, and 2 guinea hens. 

Enter this year's farm babies

4 black Australorps, 4 reds, and 4 Mallard ducklings

The kids are already smitten ...

I do like green eggs and ham

I DO like them, Sam-I-Am!

My little Ameraucana is all grown up - she laid her first egg this morning :)

Broody

I thought there was something wrong with her.  Every time I've gone into the barn since Friday, our littlest (not youngest, buy physically smallest) chicken has been sitting in the same nest box.  At first I figured she was just sleeping there; I generally go into the barn in the early morning when some of the birds are still roosting, and again in the mid to late afternoon, but when A went into the barn at almost 10 am yesterday and said she was in there, I started to worry. 

I went to check on her as soon as we got home last night, thinking she had hut her legs or her wing or something.  She didn't protest when I pulled her out of the box.  I put her down and she just looked at me - she seemed fine.  Then I noticed she had an egg in the nest! She's not hurt; she's broody!

So I put her back in.  Today, Holden put both eggs that he found in the barn in her nest in the hopes that she'll hatch at least one chick.  Of course, we have no idea if the rooster is actually mating with the chickens (A says he's seen him do it and it doesn't seem to be working), so there's no guarantee that the eggs are even fertilized, but we're excited at the prospect. 

The on egg she's been sitting on is tiny, and she hadn't been laying yet.  So either she laid her very first egg and never left the nest box, or she saw the guinea lay in there and decided she needed to sit on the guinea's egg.

 
Good ol' Roadrunner!

Defective chickens?

It's October.  We got our laying hens as day old chicks in mid April.  That put them on schedule for laying around mid-late August. 

Apparently someone forgot to tell the hens that. 

Every morning, we would go out and look in the hen house.  Maybe today will be the day ... and nothing.  Days, then weeks went by and we still had not on single egg.  Our friends' chickens were laying tons of eggs and they were the same age as ours.  Did we get defective chickens??

I reasoned with them.  I asked nicely.  Then I started to tell them they had better start earning their keep as I was feeding them every morning.  Still nothing.

Then, after a long weekend away, we went out this morning to feed the birds, and I was going through my mantra of "Why are you not laying yet? you ladies need to start earning your keep", when lo and behold, in the back of one of the nest boxes, what should I spy?

Yay! Our first little eggs!!


So small, they both fit in the palm of my hand.

Of course, now this begs the question: Did two of our hens finally decide to start laying? Or did the 2 guinea hens that are 2 months younger than the chickens and due to start laying later this month start laying early? Hmmm .....

Deadstock

I have heard it in many places that if you have livestock, sooner or later you will have deadstock.  We had our first experience with this on Sunday evening.  We'd been out all afternoon and when Kenna went to let the chickens in, she found one decapitated in the grass.  Nothing else amiss, the head was no where to be found, the fencing was all still intact.  Poor chicken; poor Kenna. 

1st day out

As you can see, there was a frenzy of excitement here today.  

The chickens went outside for the very first time!

 All the chickens, even the very large one on the left, were happily scratching for centipedes.  The big chicken on the left even ate one too, for good measure. 

So ... we're like, farmers now?

We've been reading, propagating, cleaning, building, stapling, fixing ... but now there are officially animals in our barn.

Lots of them.  21 6-week old chickens to be exact.  2 of whom *may* be roosters.

Some have names.  This is  Phyllis Diller

and this is Holden with the Yeti

 

 

 

and Kenna with Party.

 

There's no turning back now.  We're officially small farmers!

Growing up ...

3 days old, coming out of the mailing box and into the brooders ...

6 weeks old, coming out of the brooders and into the barn