More Chickens!

My blog seems to be turning into a bit of a chicken blog lately... but I just can't help it! I love these little guys :) Pretty soon I will be acquiring about 40,000 other members to the little homestead, but for the time being my 12 fluffy feathered friends keep me occupied enough!



"Chicks" in the tractor getting to know the big lad

I introduced the chicks to the chickens last week but (when I was away from the place for a night for a friend's wedding social) my parents decided it was too cold and brought the chicks back inside to the warm (and WAY too small!!) brooder. True to form, it snowed this May Long weekend, so I held off on letting the chicks back outside until we got back out of the negative temperatures.

Last night, with the forecast remaining on the plus side for the foreseeable future, I threw the chicks back with the hens! They seemed to be getting along just fine this morning! 

This morning, two chickens and three chicks shared a nesting box!

And finally, on the chicken front... I'm FINALLY making money! The hens are laying beautifully! I've been getting almost constantly six eggs per day, and if the one hen would stop laying an egg from the top of the roost (which is a good 5 feet off the ground...) I'd get to keep all six!

So far I've only been selling to my boss at work, but hopefully my client base will expand soon. I would be selling more to others but she's already bought 4 dozen in the last week (she has a husband and two kids to feed so I understand!)!

One of today's dozens for the boss. Note the one lonely HUGE egg in there! That one must be a double yolker!

Hopefully we'll have a non-chicken related post sooner or later! Freezing temperatures behind us and frost nearly out of the ground, I should be moving on to gardening very soon!!

Getting to know each other

Mother's Day for hens!

So I'm wondering... Is it morbid for me to give my chickens a Mother's Day present? I mean, they're all ladies, they lay eggs all the time... But there's no rooster so they're not fertilized so technically they're not mothers...?

Whatever. I made my hens a Mother's Day present. A new and improved roost!!

And as you can see I did leave the old one in there because I'm planning on kicking the babies out there soon... As soon as it stops SNOWING!! Seriously, snow in May is not a weird occurrence in NWO... Actually it's pretty typical! 

But really, look how huge they're getting! The only reason they're not bunking with the big girls is because at the moment I don't have any way of running electricity (ie. Heat) out there. The hens are just fine (in fact they enjoy the slushy, rainy, snowy crap we've been getting... Pretty sure they are crazy), but I just don't want my babies to freeze!!

... At least... Not until this weekend!

Babies on the farm!

Eggless hens? ....Nevermind!

we're in the egg business!!

Pretty sure my chickens read my blog... I can't think of any other reason for them to have started laying literally the day after I appealed for help figuring out why they weren't laying! I got my first on Sunday, another one on Monday, FOUR on Tuesday and another four yesterday! I even found one in the crate this morning when I gave them breakfast! That's almost a dozen in 5 days!

They've been using the dog crate that's still in the coop because with working 8-5 all week at a job that is 50km from my home, and fighting off a unpleasant cold (the first I've had since last Christmas!!) I haven't had much time to work on the nesting boxes.

Summer's definitely on the way!! The ice on Eagle Lake is breaking up beautifully, soon enough fencing at the neighbours' will start and stay tuned for an update on how my gardening efforts are going!