The Year of the Chicken

I've wanted chickens ever since we moved out to the country, so we're going on six years now. This is the year, yea! I went in this morning and ordered my chicks and they'll be in on May 7th. I see a sign on the door of the feed store every year around this time about ordering chicks. They take orders for a couple of months and then fill the orders with chicks from a catalog hatchery. This benefits me because you have to order at least 25 chicks from the mail order hatcheries. I don't want 25 chickens, I want six. I'm so excited! I ended up deciding on two different breeds, the Araucana and the Silver Laced Wyandotte. The Araucana is special because it lays green and blue eggs. They are nicknamed the "Easter Egger". I just think that's cool. The other breed is the Silver Laced Wyandotte. They are excellent layers, lay brown eggs, resistant to really cold winters and just beautiful birds (picture to the right). I'm so excited to have fresh eggs every day. Have you ever had farm fresh eggs? The yolks are a deep rich orange and they taste so much better. I believe they are better for you as well. The research I've been looking at says to keep two hens for every person eating eggs. We'll see if six hens can keep us in enough eggs, we eat a lot of eggs!

We're going to keep the chicks in a pen with a heat lamp out in the shop until they are old enough for the coop. I've been telling Wesley we're going to get chicks and he seems pretty excited. I don't think he's ever seen a chick so I doubt he has a clue what is coming so it will be interesting.

I was debating where to put the chicken coop and finally decided on placing it in the horse pen. I had chickens growing up (along with ducks and pigeons) and lost a few of them to predators over the years. It's pretty traumatizing as a kid to loose a tame pet to a skunk or possum. I don't want my kids to have to witness that. So, with that being said, I want to place the coop in a location where the chance of a predator eating the chickens will be slim. In the horse pen is a good place. The horses are pretty aware of everything that goes on around them and I think they'd chase off anything that got in their pen (have you ever seen an angry miniature horse before?). Here's hoping anyways.

I told Sean I wanted to get chicks and he gave me "that look" and said "what do you want me to build." :) He's such an understanding husband.