Hey folks! Am I totally throwing you
off with having the weekly homesteading post on Monday instead of
Thursday? And two “regular” posts last week? Or did you even
notice? Ha! If it's all the same to you, I think I'll try out having
homesteading posts on Mondays and regular posts on Thursdays just
because it works out better for me. Anyways, on to today's post...
I've had a bunch of homesteading post
ideas lately...but I was afraid they would be too boring, so I've
been putting them off. But who doesn't love chickens, right? (Except
for my cousin Kristen who's weirded out by them for some reason.
C'mon, girl!) So here we are again, with a focus on chickens. First
off, I have a confession to make...
Yep. More baby chicks. Against our
better judgment. (Sort of.) Yes, we have a problem. “Hi. We're John
and Alicia and we have a chicken problem.” * In
unison from crowd *
“Hi, John and Alicia.” Yah. THAT kind of problem! But, in our
defense, here was our logic behind buying yet another round of baby
chicks (Round #5 in one year! Seriously!):
We
lost FOUR in a little over a week...Really, three in a week. And one
of the Cornish Crosses before that. (I haven't talked much about our
meat birds on here, but, again, you can keep up with all of our
chicken shenanigans in “real time” on my Instagram
account, if you like. We also have a Facebook page
for our farm now too!) So, naturally, our justification for buying
more chicks was that we had lost some. However, we bought twice as
many as we lost. Lol We're suckers, though, and feel the need to buy
chickens like we're stocking up a Moses' Ark of chickens and buy
pairs of the same breeds most of the time. Both so that they will
have buddies and just in case one of them croaks. (Sad, but very real
possibility.) Plus, Rural King had some “fun ones” in that we had
never heard of before, so that was extra tempting for us, shame on
them. So, what are these fluffy little guys? (Well, hopefully they're
all girls since we already have THREE roosters!)
We
have....2 Blue Andalusians, 2 Javas, 2 Golden-laced Wyandottes, and 1
Buff Brahma. The first four I had never heard of, therefore really
know nothing about them, to be honest, but...They look pretty as
adults. Ok, truthfully, I partly wanted the two Golden-laced
Wyandottes because I think they are pretty as adults too. Plus, we
have now lost ALL of our Silver-laced Wyandottes. :( (More on that in
a minute.) The Buff Brahma was pretty much all for John because he
has an affinity towards Brahmas for some reason. Plus...
Our
female Brahma was one of the ones we lost in a week. She was part of
the “Three Amigos”, as we called them: An Easter Egger (who
turned out to be a rooster), and two Light Brahmas, one female and
one rooster, it turns out. So, we thought we would give Ivan (the
Brahma rooster) a new buddy, hopefully...Although he does seem to
have an affinity towards both of our Buff Orpingtons, as it turns
out, but that's a story for a different time! So, I guess it's good
we got a Buff Brahma? Ha ha!
At
one point in time, we had at least 3 or 4 Silver-laced
Wyandottes...And they were one of my favorite breeds that we had, as
far as looks go. If you've not been following along with our chicken
journey for this year, we lost Lacey fairly early on to what we think
was a bird of prey. She was SUPER PRETTY. Seriously. She made the
Silver-laced chickens at the 4-H fair look like hobos. In fact, she
was so pretty that we had a hard time appreciating the beauty of the
remaining silver-laced wyandotte that came with her, Victoria. But,
alas, Victoria came to an uncertain death the same week (in fact, the
same day, I'm pretty sure) as the Brahma. (Hubby thinks it's a fox,
but more on that in a minute.) After Lacey's demise, we bought two
more silver-laced wyandottes, but they perished within the first week
to “natural causes”. (If I remember right, one got “squished”
beneath the other baby chicks and the other looked like it died of
dehydration...even though we had plenty of water for it, honest.)
And
last, but not least, we have one of the two Easter Eggers from “The
Fellowship” (aka Gandalf's Crew) that perished in the same week.
Actually, upon further investigation, hubby figured out from her
feathers scattered about everywhere that it is probably a fox that is
killing off our chickens. :( At least now we know and we can do
something about it! They kept disappearing during the day while we
were gone with no signs so, until that point, we thought someone was
stealing them!
So,
with one of the main reasons obviously wanting to be to keep our
remaining chickens safe, we built an enclosed area for them. We had
talked about it off and on for several months, intending it to be one
of our longer-term goals. However, we were lucky and recently came
across some “extra money” and decided it would be a great time to
enclose them. Plus, we were really tired of them pooping all over the
place by the back door and walkway (some of them are cat food
fiends!) and getting into the garden and pecking off things they
shouldn't be, so it was a much wanted and much needed time. We still
need to work on a “real gate”, but my husband and his parents
managed to accomplish all of this in a few hours time!
Not
bad for a few cheap landscaping timbers and off-brand fencing, eh?
We'll expand it eventually, whether it's with extra electric fencing
or something more permanent like this, but this works for now,
whether the chickens are crazy about or not. So far we've only had
one escapee who had to get her wings clipped. ;) (Gandalf's always
been a cheeky little thing.)
What's
been going on around your yard/homestead?
