Chickens

Chickens. It was one of our number one priorities when we moved and sure enough only a month after we moved we owned chickens! 

Six total (then)

We never could have know we were heading for something much, much bigger.

As we watched our six laying hens get bigger and lay their first eggs we discovered how interesting and funny chickens are. If you don't own chickens you will never know what this is like, but surprisingly they are so fascinating! We can watch them forever just as they go about their daily lives. And we also learned things about chickens I never would have guessed: 

1. Chickens are cannibalistic by nature
2. The sound you usually link with a chicken ( Bok, bok, bok) is called the egg song and it is sung when chickens are about to lay their eggs or they are practicing for when they lay their first egg
3. chickens get themselves clean by bathing in dust.

A few months after we got our first chickens we had already named them all and dropped their names because there was only one unique one in the batch. We named the one unique Skittles because she was so skittish when we first got her. The name stuck and she became our favorite.

 One day I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I heard a weird noise outside, I got up and looked, I began shouting and screaming, Skittles had gotten into the dogs fenced in yard and Levi (our dog) had a hold of her and was trying to drag her off the deck. I had reason to scream, my dog, though a city pup all his life is the best bird catcher there is! In our small neighborhood yard he brought down countless birds, a bunny, and a few possums. But that’s another story.

What mattered most was I knew Levi could kill her and it wouldn’t be a pleasant death. My mom, brother and I went thundering out and Skittles got away from Levi and got under the deck where he couldn’t get her. Feathers were everywhere, allover the deck and Levi had feathers hanging out of his drooling mouth. In the end Skittles suffered minor injuries and returned to her flock a few days later. 

the chickens

Since the first six chickens came they haven’t seemed to stop! And we now have 41 chickens! Still only six are laying eggs, the rest are to small, and we have many roosters that need to be sold and a few hens that we are getting rid of too. 

When our flocks kept increasing and we kept hatching more we had to come up with names for our groups. So here it goes from largest to smallest all the chickens we have:

The Chickens-

These are our first six and the only ones laying eggs at the moment.

But still most of the time that's one egg from each, every day! 

We have three speckled, two black, and Skittles who is also black but a different kind. 

The Little's-

the Littles and a few Minis

All but one of these almost chickens we ordered and we got them three days after they were hatched! The one we did hatch was in the first batch of eggs my mom ever hatched we got one boy and one girl sadly the girl chick died a few days after it hatched. So the little boy has grown up to be another one of our favorites and we call him Lincoln, he is the same kind of chicken as Skittles and we hope to breed them when Lincoln gets older.

The Minis as babys

The minis- 

Yes the minis, recently set free In to the outdoors after being cooped up(ha ha) in a brooder in the work shop for weeks. These adorable things are now big enough to go out side.

Watching them forage is such a joy and they are so Cute! 

The new ones- 

Yesterday we picked up week old chicks! They are so cute! Sadly though these chicks will grow up to be meat birds. But I know some chicken has to die for me to eat it so I would rather it be the Organic home raised chicken from my backyard than a miserably mistreated chicken from some chicken plant. 

The hatching- 

The New ones

And last but not least my mom is doing a Easter hatch along on the online forum she belongs to, everyone who is participating in the hatch along sets their eggs on the same day and they will all hatch on Easter! Well my moms are going to hatch the day before Easter because we have places to go on Easter and we can’t be at home staring in the incubator! 

So do you think I have enough chickens? So do I! 

But guess what? Were getting more! 

My mom calls it chicken math so here is the equation for my family 

6 chickens + my family + land = 41 chickens

It was almost like we had none and then we had to many! But it’s to late now. 

It seems like a complicated equation but it’s not.
 Here is a hint there's no math involved! Once you get chickens you will know what I mean.

I would love to sit here and tell you all about my cool chickens more but you would never get to the end of this post. =)

So stay tuned for more chicken updates in May. 

Victoria.....sorry about the delay. =(