eryan56
Hatching
- Aug 28, 2016
- 1
- 0
- 7
I am new to all this, forums and such, but have had chickens for 20 some years off and on. After a raccoon took out our flock one summer, we didn't get more until my youngest son, Raleigh, wanted to get chickens again four years ago. He was 19 at the time and he agreed to help build a more secure chicken coop. We live on 1.74 acres in the city in an area with huge lots. When we moved here 22 years ago we checked zoning and found we could have farm animals and all birds except birds of prey. We got rabbits, ducks and chickens. We still have chickens. They free range in the day and put themselves in the coop at night (if only we could teach them to close the window).
We like to buy baby chicks and have been ordering them from Meyer Hatchery. It is a little over an hour from where we live and we like to go and pick them up. We discovered the hatchery when a friend of ours with a broken shoulder needed to pick up her order and since we were thinking about getting chickens we drove her down there. We ended up getting a few chicks for ourselves and ordering more for later in the summer.
We have 23 chickens now. My son (and I) chose a variety of breeds. We have had many breeds over the past four years, One year when my dad was ill and we sometimes couldn't get home to close up the coop we lost several to raccoons. We like to get chickens that lay different colored eggs. We have a couple of easter-eggers for the blue-green eggs. a blue moran for the dark brown eggs, and a cream legbar for blue eggs Then we also like unusual looking chickens like the buff laced polish and the silician buttercup with her interesting comb, and pretty chickens like our silver spangled hamburg, barnvelder, fayoumi and wyandote. Then some old standards like a Rhode Island Red and a black australorp. A breed we have four of are the sweet Mille Fleur Bearded d'Uccles, two hens and two roosters.(The first chickens we ever got and they hold a special place in our hearts).
Five of the chickens we got this year, one of the mille fleur hens, (we were lucky since bantams come unsexed), a white silkie (also unsexed and lucky a hen), a blue andulusian, a white cochin and a faverolles.
The faverolles is actually how I found backyardchickens.com. Last year we lost our two faverolles, another sweet breed, but not from wild critters but on two separate occasions friends big dogs that were visiting. One dog got one, and then a few weeks later another dog got the other. It was very sad. So we wanted another one. The problem is even though that breed was sexed, "she" turned out to be a beautiful rooster. Googling buy, sale or trade chickens, backyard chickens came up. I don't want to sell him. Would just like to give him to a good home. Since we live in a city we feel we are living dangerously with the two mille fleur roosters, so we can't keep a big rooster.
In addition to Chickens I also enjoy writing which is why this post may seem a bit long, so I will end for now. Hoping to figure the site out, as I like to say I know just enough about computers to be dangerous. And in case you were counting I did not list all the breeds we have.
We like to buy baby chicks and have been ordering them from Meyer Hatchery. It is a little over an hour from where we live and we like to go and pick them up. We discovered the hatchery when a friend of ours with a broken shoulder needed to pick up her order and since we were thinking about getting chickens we drove her down there. We ended up getting a few chicks for ourselves and ordering more for later in the summer.
We have 23 chickens now. My son (and I) chose a variety of breeds. We have had many breeds over the past four years, One year when my dad was ill and we sometimes couldn't get home to close up the coop we lost several to raccoons. We like to get chickens that lay different colored eggs. We have a couple of easter-eggers for the blue-green eggs. a blue moran for the dark brown eggs, and a cream legbar for blue eggs Then we also like unusual looking chickens like the buff laced polish and the silician buttercup with her interesting comb, and pretty chickens like our silver spangled hamburg, barnvelder, fayoumi and wyandote. Then some old standards like a Rhode Island Red and a black australorp. A breed we have four of are the sweet Mille Fleur Bearded d'Uccles, two hens and two roosters.(The first chickens we ever got and they hold a special place in our hearts).
Five of the chickens we got this year, one of the mille fleur hens, (we were lucky since bantams come unsexed), a white silkie (also unsexed and lucky a hen), a blue andulusian, a white cochin and a faverolles.
The faverolles is actually how I found backyardchickens.com. Last year we lost our two faverolles, another sweet breed, but not from wild critters but on two separate occasions friends big dogs that were visiting. One dog got one, and then a few weeks later another dog got the other. It was very sad. So we wanted another one. The problem is even though that breed was sexed, "she" turned out to be a beautiful rooster. Googling buy, sale or trade chickens, backyard chickens came up. I don't want to sell him. Would just like to give him to a good home. Since we live in a city we feel we are living dangerously with the two mille fleur roosters, so we can't keep a big rooster.
In addition to Chickens I also enjoy writing which is why this post may seem a bit long, so I will end for now. Hoping to figure the site out, as I like to say I know just enough about computers to be dangerous. And in case you were counting I did not list all the breeds we have.
