Edens Acre - The Story of My Flock

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MommaG2023

Songster
Apr 16, 2023
207
452
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Pennsylvania
It all began one early morning several years ago. I grabbed a carton of organic brown eggs that I had purchased from the grocery store and began to open them into a bowl to scramble for breakfast. One..Two..Three...the bowl had lovely yolked eggs sitting in the bottom as I grabbed my fourth egg to add to the mix (we scramble a dozen easily for my family of 4) I crack it and dumped it and OMG what the *#$@* is this??? The smell... absolutely disgusting and nauseatingly filled my kitchen quickly...a blackish green sludge slipped out of the egg depositing itself directly over the beautiful orange yolks of the 3 previously opened in the bowl. I had never experienced this in my life of 40+ years. I immediately disposed of the entire mess and washed my hands and counter and grabbed my phone to do a search. What popped up was bacteria 🦠 infected egg. The eggs in the carton could have been likewise infected. Dispose the rest of the carton. How could this happen from store bought eggs? Quality control?
Never again would I buy eggs from this grocery...then COVID 19 hit....and eggs were hard to come by. That was the begining of my planning, implementing and so much more...this was only the begining of my journey...my dreams of a flock far into the future..
 
Ick, I had something similar happen once. I was using the normal white store bought eggs, and making breakfast, only one of mine had a pink tinge for the egg white. I just tossed it and found a new breakfast, since the event put me off of eggs for the day. I googled it later out of curiosity and I'm glad I tossed the whole thing because I would've made myself incredible ill from it.
 
As the days passed during lockdowns and cyber schooling my children due to school shut downs, my husband and I looked into becoming more self sustaining. Our local stores were frequently out of our necessary foods and products. I heard stories from various family members scattered throughout the US ( we don't have family members outside of the US, but I am sure those who reside there struggled as much or more) from East Coast to West Coast we were all feeling the supply issues. We decided to work on raised garden beds for produce, and bought copious amounts of books on homesteading and self reliance. We looked into our boroughs rules on keeping livestock. We were legally not allowed to keep chickens or any other livestock, according to the ordinances of our borough. UGH!!! 😫 My husband, God love him, had always hated our 200 year old home. From day 20 ish he felt frustrated by the constant issues of owning a 2 centuries old house. Obviously the housing market was frozen during these weeks and months of shutdown, but we began to search for a new home, one that we could happily and readily implement all of our new gained knowledge. The idea of homesteading was delicious 😋 but the reality is not as easy as a book or blog will state. Being self sufficient is difficult and takes time, energy, and in the begining $$$ 💵. Fast forward to 2022. The housing market was better though not ideal to move or sell. The later months in our area were fastly becoming a Buyer beware market. Homes in the country that were almost uninhabitable due to rot and mold were selling fast because people wanted out of the cities and we struggled to find a decent home that was worth the price and had all the boxes (or most of them) checked. In September we found Edens Acre. It is small by most standards for homesteading but do able. By this spring 🌱 we wanted as much as possible to have our chicks and our gardens. We are still working on 90% of what we want to do here but we LOVE the freedom to grow and nurture this home for our children. I, like many on here, chose TSC for my chicks. Oh my, the selection. I honestly believed that the "Premium Pullets" were only pullets...oh how naive I was only a few short months ago, 😂 lol. I also believed, though had been forewarned numerous times in readings, blogs, posts, etc. To have my Coop ready before purchasing chicks. Well, I truly believed that we had at least 6 weeks, a full month and a half to create the perfect set up, again how naive I was. Aside from our many stumbles and 8 week chicks still in the garage, we have made it to today. A coop filled with 15 healthy pullets and 4 cockerels ( 2 of which were "guaranteed pullets" from TSC). And a brooder in my garage with 5 lovely pullet Chickies (hopefully all pullets, lol) that are 4 weeks and counting. Raised garden beds are already set up and growing some veggies!! Wish us luck with our future flock and homesteading goals...I hope to have a few of you along for this journey of a lifetime. 💖
 
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Thank you 😊 I feel proud as if my chicks are my babies??? I find it lovely and have 4 rescue kitties and 1 rescued rabbit and didn't feel as proud. Must be that I raised them from 1 day old maybe...🤔
People don't realize how easy it is to become attached to chicks and chickens, they really do have a way of burrowing deep into our hearts. 💖
 

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