New additions to the flock 2015

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... 

The Girls...

So its been a few months since we got the new fancy chickens.

I thought you might want to get to know them better!

Eagle

Our first little girl to get injured.

She had most of her tail feathers peaked out in the beginning.

Now she tries to steer clear of the big girls...and often times Pigeon keeps her safe.

Aptly named Eagle, the noises she makes sound very bird of prey-ish!

Still waiting to see what colour her eggs will be!

(she is our easter egger)

*******************

Oreo

(Formerly Dark Rainbow)

A very sweet, shy girl.

She keeps her distance mostly.

I've spent some time just sitting in the coop and she'll come around to peck mosquitoes off of my pants.

You can't really tell from these shots, but she is by far our puffiest hen!

She ended up with a new name as Owen felt Dark Rainbow was too long.

******************

Pigeon

By far, my favorite little girl.

She is very motherly and protective of all of her coop sisters.

She herds in the young ones and alerts them to any approaching big girls.

She is always at my heels.

I'm sure she thinks I'm the mother hen.

On another note...if we were to ever order new chicks...I would

not hesitate to get more Silver Laced Wyandottes.

********************

 

Sun

Our beautiful blonde girl.

Insert blonde joke here.

She is quite puffy but sometimes she doesn't seem to know what to do with all of those feathers!

She is hilarious to watch...quite daft and dizzy at times.

She hops straight up in the air to catch bugs in the evening.

She was the first of the little ones to start getting her mature comb.

Her grown up chicken voice sounds like a goose...it's hilarious!

******************

You're welcome to drop by and meet the girls anytime!

They love visitors...and have learned quickly that people means treats.

All in all, the new girls settled in just fine...

PS.  our hen that rules the coop is Clover...

She is the one hen that lets me pet her without fail.

She is hilarious...

Sadly, we lost one of our first hens.

It was the strangest thing.

She was fine in the morning, but by 6pm, she was struggling to breathe.

It took less than 5 mins for her to pass away, once we noticed she was ill.

Now we have 7 hens in total...and will probably add more this spring.

We were sad about the passing of Birch...

but its times like these when we get to teach Owen about life and death.

Not my favorite aspect of parenting...but how else are our children supposed to learn?

***********************

UPDATE:

Our easter egger was the first of the new girls to lay an egg!

The wee blue tinted egg is on the left...next to one of our regular hens eggs.

The big girls tend to lay an extra large egg per day on average.

Not sure what class she's laying right now...peewee?

New Girls

Soooo....we had an opportunity to get our hands on more chickens.

(why not, eh?)

I work with a fellow who was able to get us some more!

He's my friend Nathan Putnam.

We share the vision of homesteading and small scale farming for all.

He's a dispatcher like me, but he's also a paramedic on Wolfe Island, a husband,

owner of several very large dogs and runs his own landscaping business!

Check it out here:

http://www.putnamlandscaping.ca/

We arranged to meet halfway between our home and Wolfe Island...

The waiting was hard....

These were special girls...

Special package needs special care!

Owen has taken on such responsibility with the chickens...

That he had to do this job himself!

Nathan had ordered a selection of rare and heritage breeds of chicks.

We got one of each kind!

Here's the list:

-  Americauna

-  Dominique

-  Silver Laced Wyandotte

-  Buff Orpington

They started mingling with the older girls right away.

We don't have a separate brooding area.

(Yet...)

Above you can see Sun - the Buff Orpington on the left and

Dark Rainbow now known an Oreo - the Dominique.

FUN FACT:  Dominique chickens are the oldest laying breed in North America!

Above you can see Sun (again) and Pigeon - the Silver Laced Wyandotte in 

the middle.  On the right is Eagle - the Americauna.

FUN FACT:  Americauna chickens are known as "Easter Eggers"

Easter eggers will lay fun coloured eggs like blue, pink or green.

I have read on some sites that these lovely ladies will lay a variety of coloured eggs.

I've read other sites that state these girls will lay either blue or green but not both.

We shall see!

I'll keep you posted...as these new girls are too young to be laying just yet.

Stay tuned for more chicken adventures!