Hello!
- (1) Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens?
-- We are not new to chickens. We've raised a variety of chicken breeds for 7 years.
- (2) How many chickens do you have right now?
-- We have around 40 free ranging chickens.
- (3) What breeds do you have?
-- We have Silkies (buff, splash, black & white), Salmon Faverolles, a variety of Phoenix/Ameraucana/Australorp crosses, a Cochin & a retired Buff Orpington. We also raise Pilgrim Geese (our flock has produced a nice bunch of eggs this spring & some are pipping at this moment in the incubator) and have a few ring-necked pheasants. In the past we raised royal palm turkeys
- (4) How did you find out about BackYardChickens.com?
-- Search engines (a few years back when looking for information on hatcheries in the process of purchasing our Pilgrims)
- (5) What are some of your other hobbies?
-- I raise Mini Nubian dairy goats & am an artist (though little painting gets done during the spring/summer with kidding, hatching, 4-H, shows & gardening).
- (6) Tell us about your family, your other pets, your occupation, or anything else you'd like to share.
-- We homeschool our 2 children in rural NW Illinois. My 13 year old son adores birds of all kinds and he is the favorite person of all our adult geese, my 9 year old daughter loves all creatures great & small & is becoming a fantastic goat midwife. My husband is a hardworking man & it's thanks to him we are able to live out here in our own little Eden. I'm a painter, specializing in animal portraiture, but at this time of year my little studio is overtaken with brooders & heat lamps. We are all SO excited that our Pilgrim geese are producing fertile eggs! It was very hard to come by our first goslings - having to ship them all the way from the West coast & then the hatchery not having enough to fulfill our original order (we only got half) & then the goslings were in transit a whole extra day & arrived very dehydrated.... But after all that, they still made it & are already giving us babies!
If anyone is interested, we do have a website: http://brownfoxfarm.weebly.com & I have one for my art: http://joycebrandon.com
SO! Hello to everyone! I've enjoyed lurking on the boards for a long time & am looking forward to continuing to learn from everyone here.
-Joyce
You're very talented at drawing!
from Alabama. Glad you joined us. 
