- Aug 23, 2013
- 4
- 1
- 7
Hi everybody! I'm Emily, from sunny Santa Fe.
We got our first chickens back in February 2011 - 6 Red Stars from The Feed Bin (local store). They grew up fast and healthy on their 100% organic feed + treats, free-ranging on our 1/5 acre yard in the city, and they produced an amazing amount of big beautiful brown eggs starting at 16-17 weeks - nearly an egg a day from each girl, every day, all year long, for 2 years. Now they are tapering off, entering their retirement years...
Later that first year, we added several Delaware hens, gorgeous white heritage breed hens that laid enormous, often double-yolk eggs. But we didn't handle the introductions properly, and thus they didn't ever get along well with our Red Stars, so we relocated them out to a friend's place in the countryside a few weeks after they arrived. Oops.
Last summer, 2012, we added 7 Buff Orpington pullets to our flock, as friends of our had some and loved them, and we wanted some dual-purpose hens. This time, the introductions went fairly smoothly. They are fluffy, gorgeous, healthy girls, very mild-mannered and easy going (well, most of them...) They are decent egg producers of lovely medium-sized brown eggs (2-4 per week per hen), and a bit meatier than the Red Stars, and (we just recently learned) they tend to be very broody.
One of our Buffs in particular, Mama Blue, sat herself down on some eggs in August (2013) and would not get up, come hell or high water. So we thought, hey, let's give her what she wants! So we ordered 25 day-old chicks (15 Red Stars and 10 Delawares) from Welp Hatchery (highly recommend them). We hoped that one or more of the other Buffs would go broody, too, as they had shown signs of heading that way, and then they could help out with all those babies. Alas, that part of the plan didn't take... Nevertheless, the 25 chicks arrived in early September, hale and hearty and scampering about energetically, and they all took to eating and drinking immediately upon arrival. The night they arrived, in the pitch dark (yay for the new moon!), we took the well-guarded and well-warmed (but infertile) eggs out from under Mama Blue and slipped in, one by one, ALL 25 chicks. She took every last one of them in under her, one by one, expanding her fluffiness more and more with each addition, and proceeded to raise the entire bunch all by herself, beautifully. What a champ! 25 babies!! Can you imagine?
So, when these adorable little girls get themselves all grown up, we'll have 15 Red Stars for our laying flock, and eventually we'll borrow a Rhode Island Red rooster for a little while to breed with the 10 Delawares to make more Red Stars down the line, so that we won't have to buy chicks from hatcheries anymore, or at least not nearly as often (= more sustainable and affordable, and we like the idea of home grown!)
We got our first chickens back in February 2011 - 6 Red Stars from The Feed Bin (local store). They grew up fast and healthy on their 100% organic feed + treats, free-ranging on our 1/5 acre yard in the city, and they produced an amazing amount of big beautiful brown eggs starting at 16-17 weeks - nearly an egg a day from each girl, every day, all year long, for 2 years. Now they are tapering off, entering their retirement years...
Later that first year, we added several Delaware hens, gorgeous white heritage breed hens that laid enormous, often double-yolk eggs. But we didn't handle the introductions properly, and thus they didn't ever get along well with our Red Stars, so we relocated them out to a friend's place in the countryside a few weeks after they arrived. Oops.
Last summer, 2012, we added 7 Buff Orpington pullets to our flock, as friends of our had some and loved them, and we wanted some dual-purpose hens. This time, the introductions went fairly smoothly. They are fluffy, gorgeous, healthy girls, very mild-mannered and easy going (well, most of them...) They are decent egg producers of lovely medium-sized brown eggs (2-4 per week per hen), and a bit meatier than the Red Stars, and (we just recently learned) they tend to be very broody.
One of our Buffs in particular, Mama Blue, sat herself down on some eggs in August (2013) and would not get up, come hell or high water. So we thought, hey, let's give her what she wants! So we ordered 25 day-old chicks (15 Red Stars and 10 Delawares) from Welp Hatchery (highly recommend them). We hoped that one or more of the other Buffs would go broody, too, as they had shown signs of heading that way, and then they could help out with all those babies. Alas, that part of the plan didn't take... Nevertheless, the 25 chicks arrived in early September, hale and hearty and scampering about energetically, and they all took to eating and drinking immediately upon arrival. The night they arrived, in the pitch dark (yay for the new moon!), we took the well-guarded and well-warmed (but infertile) eggs out from under Mama Blue and slipped in, one by one, ALL 25 chicks. She took every last one of them in under her, one by one, expanding her fluffiness more and more with each addition, and proceeded to raise the entire bunch all by herself, beautifully. What a champ! 25 babies!! Can you imagine?
So, when these adorable little girls get themselves all grown up, we'll have 15 Red Stars for our laying flock, and eventually we'll borrow a Rhode Island Red rooster for a little while to breed with the 10 Delawares to make more Red Stars down the line, so that we won't have to buy chicks from hatcheries anymore, or at least not nearly as often (= more sustainable and affordable, and we like the idea of home grown!)
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