Saturday, October 8, 2011

NEW CHICKENS!

We are very happy!  We have new chickens.

Loyal blog readers will remember that our last batch of chickens got old and stopped laying much. So we took them off to the butcher.  Two of them are in the crockpot right now.

We wanted more chickens, but the closest reasonable place to get chickens was some 2 hours north. This weekend, the big girls are visiting their grandparents and we are meeting my parents 2 hours north, close to the chicken farm. Ok, fine, we thought. We'll go get chickens this weekend to combine trips.

Except that earlier this week, we discovered the chicken farm wasn't selling chickens anymore.

Kevin did another Craigslist search and found a place an hour away with 10 month old chickens that have been laying for about a month.  PERFECT!

We were originally going to get all Golden Comets, which is a breed that lays eggs like crazy. But it turned out their were only 8 Golden Comets available.  So Kevin did a little mix and matching, kind of like when you get doughnuts at the doughnut shop.  A couple Auracanas, a few White Rocks, a few Barred Rocks, perhaps a Buff Orpington or two,  some Black Sexlinks, and we were in business.

 We bought 20 ten month old chickens, and the seller threw in 4 younger pullets for free. So now we have 24 chickens and a very grateful, very happy, very relieved guinea hen named Cookie.

 Cookie has been ours for years and was disturbed by the removal of her flock. Very disturbed.  She took to standing mournfully on our back deck all the time and peering through the double doors into our breakfast room.  Kevin would sometimes go outside and chase her around to give her a little social interaction, but it wasn't enough.  Now she has a flock and she is delighted.

 And so are we.   The chickens are really attractive and we hope to get many eggs from them. So far, we've only gotten one egg (and we brought them home 2 days ago.) That is not surprising as when chickens are moved, it takes a while for them to get back on track with egg laying.


   Here are they in the minivan.  They were obviously packed in quite tightly but didn't mind too much. It was after dark so they were mostly asleep.

  
 Here is one of the white chickens.

  Here is the happy guinea with a variety of chickens near her.


The first egg!!

Naomi wrote a great post about the chickens.  Here it is:

http://onegirlinabigfamily.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-chickens.html

No comments: