My husband and I moved from a residential area outside of Austin, Texas to our 4-1/2 acre tiny farm. My husband and I moved here with just our little 10 year old dog Kippy. We have been busy the last year preparing our land by building a barn, a chicken coop, and a rabbit hutch. I have never had a more satisfying life as this. We now have 2 lop eared rabbits and 8 Buff Orpington chickens. So now I will talk about the chickens.
Before buying my chickens I did a lot of research, especially on the Backyard Chicken website. I learned so much. We located a farm supply an hour away that sold many breeds of chickens including the Buffs we had decided we wanted t raise. Their chicks came from a hatchery that sexes them as pullets. We bought 8. They are now 5 weeks old and it looks like we have 5 hens and 3 roos. What should we do with the 3 -1%ers. (We were told the sexing had a 99% success rate.)
My husband says we will dress them when they are the right size and enjoy them on our Sunday dinner table. Probably a good plan for 2 out of 3. I think we will keep the largest for fertilizing our ladies eggs and just plan on having egg layers and meat birds. It pains me to think of the birds as food because they are just adorable and we spent a lot of time making sure they made it out of chickhood. But God bless them, they are on the food chain and food is food. So the plan now is to keep 5 hens for laying and 1 roo for making babies. Now I must research how all that works. We want eggs and meat birds so how in the world do we figure out which eggs to leave in the coop for hatching?
We think that building a flock and keeping our land and little downsized home in tip top shape is going to be the perfect job for 2 retirees. We work 10-12 hours a day outdoors and are exhausted by days end. This will be the solution to the dreaded retirement boredom.
Our hen house we call the Hilton also has a large covered run.
Happy BunBun
Before buying my chickens I did a lot of research, especially on the Backyard Chicken website. I learned so much. We located a farm supply an hour away that sold many breeds of chickens including the Buffs we had decided we wanted t raise. Their chicks came from a hatchery that sexes them as pullets. We bought 8. They are now 5 weeks old and it looks like we have 5 hens and 3 roos. What should we do with the 3 -1%ers. (We were told the sexing had a 99% success rate.)
My husband says we will dress them when they are the right size and enjoy them on our Sunday dinner table. Probably a good plan for 2 out of 3. I think we will keep the largest for fertilizing our ladies eggs and just plan on having egg layers and meat birds. It pains me to think of the birds as food because they are just adorable and we spent a lot of time making sure they made it out of chickhood. But God bless them, they are on the food chain and food is food. So the plan now is to keep 5 hens for laying and 1 roo for making babies. Now I must research how all that works. We want eggs and meat birds so how in the world do we figure out which eggs to leave in the coop for hatching?
We think that building a flock and keeping our land and little downsized home in tip top shape is going to be the perfect job for 2 retirees. We work 10-12 hours a day outdoors and are exhausted by days end. This will be the solution to the dreaded retirement boredom.
Our hen house we call the Hilton also has a large covered run.
Happy BunBun