Another unexpected bonus to working at The Kitchen Garden was the part timer!
She is a skater boarder/bird breeder living in Erinsville.
You can find her on Instgram under the name The Real Farmacy.
It sounded like her homestead had a lot in common with ours...
so we thought we'd head out for a visit!
It was a short drive for my son and I one sunday morning
back in July I believe.
She breeds turkeys.
Big ones.
She has a flock of laying hens.
And a whole lotta chicks!
My son was very taken with the baby turkeys (Poults if you want to get technical).
They were pretty sweet.
Aw who am I kidding?
They were freakin adorable!!!
Luckily we only came home with 3 hens.
Two Ameraucanas.
One Jersey Giant.
A JERSEY GIANT.
Not sure what I was thinking...
but I'll be sure to post a picture of her when she is all grown up!
I'm super excited to see how these new babies make out with our flock.
I'm also stoked to see how the giant turns out!
That brings us up to 12 hens.
Still perfectly acceptable.
No crazy chicken ladies here.
Nope.
SUPER SAD UPDATE:
Two weeks after I wrote this post...a raccoon grabbed two of the new chicks.
Killed them both.
And the orange necked ameraucana in the bottom of the picture above survived.
She's a scrappy lil thing but she was pretty traumatized by the whole event.
I was devastated by the loss of the two chicks.
It was our first attack on our hens.
For better or worse, we shot the raccoon the next night in a
wave of anger and a feeling of protecting our flock.
Not sure how I feel about it now.
I'm still an animal lover...
and its not like we go sport hunting raccoons all of the time.
We've lived here happily for 4 years without having to kill off the local wildlife.
I would like to think the next time we'll use a live trap.
Then I saw a big turkey vulture flying very close to our yard...
and thought...
why would I deprive such a majestic bird a well deserved meal?
All I know is those sweet lil chicks aint growing up.
And I was pretty pissed about that fact.
Another Update:
We took in 3 of my sister-in-law's hens.
One died mysteriously shortly after we took them in.
The other one didn't integrate very well.
She developed a head wound that would not heal.
We separated her from the flock on numerous occasions.
Each time we tried to re-introduce her...they would attack her all over again.
We made the choice to end her suffering.
Strangely enough the whole flock calmed down once she was gone.
One of our original flock died of old age.
Then our Silver Laced Wyandotte had a prolapsed vent.
Our flock is now 6...but spring of 2016 will bring way more hen madness!
Stay tuned for the new arrivals...
Raccoons and chickens will not coexist well. Once the raccoons have figured out how to get into the henhouse then you have a choice as to which will survive as it becomes an either/or. Fact of life on a farm. Doesn't make it any easier to kill an animal..but you could use the pelt at least so it isn't just a matter of protection..one Davy Crockett hat coming up?
ReplyDeletethe local turkey vulture had a great meal for a couple of days...then this fall we had a coyote grab a hen while they were free ranging! I keep them indoors now...
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