Chickens!!
In March of this year we went to Tractor Supply to get dog food, and they had a bin full of baby ducks. Of course I was like "Awww, we have to get some" And Hunter being the sensible one, told me I needed to go home and learn about them first. This is where we decided to switch and get chickens....Ducks are messy creatures and they don't tend to be very smart when it comes to predators. So I bought a book, looked it up online, and joined a forum to get as much information as possible. The book "Chick Days" is a day by day diary of keeping and raising baby chicks from Day 1 until they start laying eggs. It tells you the ups and downs of raising chicks, mistakes the author made, things that worked well, etc. It also breaks down the breeds and helps you see which ones are good for egg laying, are friendly, etc. We looked at that book for a week, then decided we wanted to get Silkies, Buff Orpingtons, Americaunas, Black Australorps, Marans, and a few other bantams. We also said we would only be getting 15 maybe 20 tops....HAHAHA
We found the Silkies first, locally on Craigslist. We stopped at Tractor Supply on the way to get them and ended up buying 6 chicks there as well, 4 silver laced wyandottes, a Rhode Island Red, and Glenda our Cornish Cross. So we came home with 6 chicks from TSC, and 4 silkies(2 white and 2 black) from Mount Airy. That right there took up 10 of my "15" chickens I was allowed to get. So the next day I am on Craigslist again and I find a "Chicken Swap" in Concord the following Saturday. And they were going to have the Buff Orpingtons, Black Australorps, and Americaunas we wanted. We were also delivering a puppy to a family that lived in the area, so we made plans to go early enough to stop by the "Swap" first. Not only did the family end up meeting us at the "Swap" but they were as enchanted by the chickens as we were. I use we very loosely, but Hunter loves the little birds just as much as I do. We got 4 Buff Orpingtons, 3 Black Australorps, they had sold out of Americaunas, and 2 more black Silkies. So lets see if my Chicken Math is correct...10 at home + 9 at the chicken swap = 19....oh no I can only get one more...and TSC has Americaunas come in on the following Monday (you have to buy 6 when you get them from Tractor Supply) so that takes us to 25 by Tuesday. Then we still needed to get Bantams (which for those of you who don't know are mini chickens) but they don't come until Fridays. We got 12, mainly because we didn't know what they were and we could always sell them later right? Ok so 25 + 12 = 37 plus 3 more Americaunas, and 3 more RIR, and 6 more bantams we are now up to 49 chicks. However we lost 3 bantams (they couldn't take the stress of some really bad thunderstorms we had), sold a trio of Olde English Game Bantams, and then my last 8 Cochins (also bantams) went home last week. Grand total before this weekend was down to 35. But that doesn't include the eggs in the incubators. I found a girl locally who has polish chickens and she sold us 20 eggs for $8 (this is a really good deal for hatching eggs) and they hatched over this weekend, starting Sunday afternoon. We had 10 out of the 19 hatch (one wasnt fertile) and then 9 out of the 10 make it past the "3 day" mark....
And here they are: I will introduce them one by one once they are sorted and Happy in their new coop Hunter and Ely will be building next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment