First off, Backyard Chickens has been my go to place for chicken advice since before we got chickens this summer, and it was an awesome place for answers during our first hatch. We had eggs in the incubator and a few under a broody hen.
All I knew about chickens was from when I was a kid playing with my grandparents chickens and being told not to touch chicks or they would die. My dad thankfully knows a little more since he was a farm kid, but the last few months have been a learning experience for both of us. We were gifted with seven game chickens by a friend. They turned out to be mostly wild. One flew into a neighboring field and never returned, one was killed by our dog, one was killed by my sister's dog, and we sold our rooster recently. The dogs have thankfully learned their lesson, and my dog is actually really scared of the chickens now. Unsatisfied with the egg production and general wildness of the flock, Dad decided we needed better chickens. Conveniently, two of the girls went broody.
After a pretty disastrous sitting where we learned that out coop was not at all snake proof and that one hen is a chick killer (lessons were learned, we are wiser now), we ended up with five little Marans chicks and a super-mom named Peg who happily adopted four incubator babies no questions asked. Personally, I don't think she trusted me with the chicks.
So now we have three game hens, and five balls of fluff known as Marans who are now nine weeks. We expanded our coop this weekend and are hoping to get some more chickies to make the flock a little more varied in the coming year. I've had so much fun and frustration with all the feathered friends involved and tend to talk people's ears off about whatever the chickens are up today.
It's nice to know there are other people out there who are stricken with the same "chicken mania" me and my dad are!
Thanks for being awesome, Backyard Chickens!
(And here are the babies, mom, and friends chilling in some bushes. I can only get non-blurry pictures when they're napping. Mom is the golden/brown one.)
All I knew about chickens was from when I was a kid playing with my grandparents chickens and being told not to touch chicks or they would die. My dad thankfully knows a little more since he was a farm kid, but the last few months have been a learning experience for both of us. We were gifted with seven game chickens by a friend. They turned out to be mostly wild. One flew into a neighboring field and never returned, one was killed by our dog, one was killed by my sister's dog, and we sold our rooster recently. The dogs have thankfully learned their lesson, and my dog is actually really scared of the chickens now. Unsatisfied with the egg production and general wildness of the flock, Dad decided we needed better chickens. Conveniently, two of the girls went broody.
After a pretty disastrous sitting where we learned that out coop was not at all snake proof and that one hen is a chick killer (lessons were learned, we are wiser now), we ended up with five little Marans chicks and a super-mom named Peg who happily adopted four incubator babies no questions asked. Personally, I don't think she trusted me with the chicks.
So now we have three game hens, and five balls of fluff known as Marans who are now nine weeks. We expanded our coop this weekend and are hoping to get some more chickies to make the flock a little more varied in the coming year. I've had so much fun and frustration with all the feathered friends involved and tend to talk people's ears off about whatever the chickens are up today.
It's nice to know there are other people out there who are stricken with the same "chicken mania" me and my dad are!
Thanks for being awesome, Backyard Chickens!
(And here are the babies, mom, and friends chilling in some bushes. I can only get non-blurry pictures when they're napping. Mom is the golden/brown one.)
and Welcome to BYC!
