Well, we are going this weekend (Saturday morning) to place our order for day old baby chicks. After much debating and looking online, we are going with little ones rather than the 17 week old pullets the hatchery offers. Tyler has his own views on the whole system - which for the most part agree with what we are thinking:
Our first order should be ready for pick up June 2nd:
5 female
Barred Rock4 female
Rhode Island Red 1 rooster Rhode Island Red
Our second shipment won't be ready until June 30th:
4
Jersey Giant females
2 Jersey Giant Roosters
2 of something else (Todd says whatever as long as it is a brown egg layer). He mentioned
Black Stars, but I'm thinking
these or
these. I would really, really like to have some of
these, but I was outvoted by Todd and Tyler - Jessie said they were wierd, but she would go along with me.
Okay all you chicken keepers out there - is there anything else we need to know? (And don't
even tell me we need more chicks in each batch - the only reason we are doing 2 batches is the Jersey Giants won't be ready until the 30th of June, and Tyler is a little anxious to get these and get started).
The plan with all the roosters is - if they all cannot get along, some will go in the freezer when they are ready (the Jersey Giants mature at 13 lbs.). And we are getting so many banking on the fact that a few could not make it throughout this whole process. Although as I said, the way our luck runs,
every single chick will survive and thrive.
My parents have chickens, white ones and golden comets (?). They have a really, really tame chicken. Tyler said to me yesterday -
"I want one of Grandma's tame white chickens, and when I go to visit, I will take the chicken in a cage so the chicken can visit with Grandma and Grandpa and all her chicken friends." How cute is that??? That definitely makes up for wanting a Rooster to flog his sister when she is mean to him (which he mentioned
again - so I'm thinking he is serious on this - might have to have a little talk with him).
So then last night it was look around and try to figure out where in the heck we are going to keep these things, and all the other boring but necessary stuff. Turns out we have a buckeye barn - we were going to use it for the dogs in the winter and make runs attached to it with a concrete pad - guess the chickens will live in it for now - and we'll fence them in a little area. Todd does not believe we can do the whole free range chicken thing, but I have other plans on that (we'll just do it when he is not around). But, we do have lots of coyotes around us, so I can see the point when we are not home to keeping them penned in.
On other news - it's been crappy and rainy here - is warm weather ever going to arrive? We've spent our evenings hunting wild mushrooms (so far, we've only found about a dozen).
Enjoy the rain!!
Kris