We brought home 8 new chickens on Saturday. 2011 was a rough year to be a chicken in our backyard. Our first year and a half we didn't have a single chicken tragedy but windstorms, hailstorms, and the hottest summer in Texas history made for lots of tears from sad kiddos! We went from an even dozen chickens at the beginning of the year to only four that were with us to ring in 2012. Here is hoping that our new flock fares a little better!
The new girls are supposed to be just 4-6 weeks from being ready to lay eggs. Adolesecent chickens are such awkward looking creatures!
We set up our chicken fence to keep the new chickens segregated from the four hens we have left. Our last batch of chicks had quite the wild tendencies and figured out how to fly over the fence quite quickly.
Of the eight wild chicks we added in the spring of 2010, Big Ben is the only one we have left. She has finally relented on laying her eggs under the neighbors cedar tree.
Of the original five that we started with in spring of 2009, we still have our three Barred Rock hens. At three years of age (when hens typically cut down on egg production) they are still laying fairly reliably and have been the best chickens of the many varieties we have had. Unfortunately, the farmer that we bought from did not have any Barred Rocks that were closer to laying age.
We ended up with seven Buff Orpingtons and one Americana. It was our only choice if we wanted the older pullets. We shall see how the Buffs measure up to the other breeds we have tried. And even if they are a big flighty, who can resist the awesomeness of a blue egg from an Americana!! I would have loved to have a few more of the colored egg layers, but maybe we will venture into chicks again so that we can pick the breeds that we prefer.
The Tornado guarding the new chickens that were transported home in cardboard boxes. Oh how much we appreciated having a truck to transport them. The first five came home in the back of the mini van and that was a stinky endeavor! The next batch came to use by way of the US Postal Service as day old chicks.
The Garden Girl taking her box out to the backyard. Is it obvious that it was QUITE windy on Saturday?
The Chicken Whisperer doing her thing with the chickens! The kids have the other four hens trained to come back to the coop with barely a call. I was quite amazed when I asked them to round up the chickens and they had them in the coop in a matter of seconds. It might take a while before the new batch are trained this well!
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.