[The Shire] Our growing flock!

[newchickychick]

Did you happen to get a legbar? We had a mixed order, and kept two polish, a turken, and a legbar (plus some "regular" looking chicks), and I must say, that little legbar is soooo sweet and cuddly! Not sure if they are all like that...mine is from McMurray. I just love her! She will have a mini-mohawk lol.

No legbars at the time! But I've heard great things about them! So far we've got... Oh gosh, here we go.
- Random Bantams I still can't ID yet! (but we do have FIVE frizzle Bantam Cochins AND two White Sultan Bantams! And definitely Porcelain and Mille Fleur D'uccles)
- Silkies
- Polish
- "Americanas" (EEs! - Including Prairie Bluebell Eggers)
- Cochins
- Phoenixes
- Yokohamas
- POSSIBLY Black Sumatras (I HOPE!)
- Speckled Sussexes
- Black Jersey Giants
- A Sicilian Buttercup!
- Crazy Cackle Toppie
- A Lakenvelder
- Silver Spangled Hamburgs
- A Golden Spangled Spitzhauben (SO cute!)
- Silver Laced Wyandottes
- Barred Rocks
- Olive Eggers (with tiny mohawks!)
- Buff and Lavender Orpingtons
- Rhode Island Reds
- Cinnamon Queens
- Will soon have 5 sexed Turken chicks (tomorrow)!

Of course, we no doubt have plenty of cockerels we will try to rehome free (or process if we're not able to). But so far I think we've got a rather nice variety. But definitely still SO many we don't have!

 

[Iluveggers]

No legbars at the time! But I've heard great things about them! So far we've got... Oh gosh, here we go.
- Random Bantams I still can't ID yet! (but we do have FIVE frizzle Bantam Cochins AND two White Sultan Bantams! And definitely Porcelain and Mille Fleur D'uccles)
- Silkies
- Polish
- "Americanas" (EEs! - Including Prairie Bluebell Eggers)
- Cochins
- Phoenixes
- Yokohamas
- POSSIBLY Black Sumatras (I HOPE!)
- Speckled Sussexes
- Black Jersey Giants
- A Sicilian Buttercup!
- Crazy Cackle Toppie
- A Lakenvelder
- Silver Spangled Hamburgs
- A Golden Spangled Spitzhauben (SO cute!)
- Silver Laced Wyandottes
- Barred Rocks
- Olive Eggers (with tiny mohawks!)
- Buff and Lavender Orpingtons
- Rhode Island Reds
- Cinnamon Queens
- Will soon have 5 sexed Turken chicks (tomorrow)!

Of course, we no doubt have plenty of cockerels we will try to rehome free (or process if we're not able to). But so far I think we've got a rather nice variety. But definitely still SO many we don't have!

You have such a nice variety! We have 23 hens (including EE, Speckled Sussex, OE, Barred Rock, Wyandotte, Orpingtons, Golden Comet, Marans, Turken, Welsummer, Bielefender, Australorp, Rhode Island Blue, and Columbian Rock), and are adding 9 chicks....Still deciding which 9 to keep as my kid narrowed it down to 13...our aunt is taking whichever 4 we dont decide to keep!

I would love some bantams, but roosters aren't allowed in my area, so we are limited to mostly large fowl, although I may bite the bullet and order sexed bantams from Meyer one of these days. They are so expensive! Very happy McMurray offered sexed Polish.

Which are your favorites so far? I am partial to our Orpingtons, Turken, Golden Comet and Speckled Sussex hens...have fun with all of your choices and variety!

 

[newchickychick]

You have such a nice variety! We have 23 hens (including EE, Speckled Sussex, OE, Barred Rock, Wyandotte, Orpingtons, Golden Comet, Marans, Turken, Welsummer, Bielefender, Australorp, Rhode Island Blue, and Columbian Rock), and are adding 9 chicks....Still deciding which 9 to keep as my kid narrowed it down to 13...our aunt is taking whichever 4 we dont decide to keep!

I would love some bantams, but roosters aren't allowed in my area, so we are limited to mostly large fowl, although I may bite the bullet and order sexed bantams from Meyer one of these days. They are so expensive! Very happy McMurray offered sexed Polish.

Which are your favorites so far? I am partial to our Orpingtons, Turken, Golden Comet and Speckled Sussex hens...have fun with all of your choices and variety!

Thankfully we're agriculturally zoned and are not limited. We're blessed! It gives us serious time to pick good roos (if any) to keep.

Gosh, I'm definitely partial to our poor little Fruzzle (one of the Silkies). I REALLY hope I can figure out how to fix his leg. Such a sweetie!
Also one of the potential Sumatras has been a little doll, and Gadget one of our EEs is too silly! The buff orpingtons though have also been just sweethearts. Salsa especially is extra social. The Polish are a bit skittish, but SO fun! I assume once everyone's all settled into the big coop and has lots of space, they'll all have the chance to warm up to me. A lot of the Bantams now are really curious any time I step into the brooder to clean or tidy things or help Fruzzle eat/drink. (He just has a harder time moving around with the limp so doesn't go much to the waterer on his own, but is SUPER willing to eat/drink when put by both thankfully - hasn't seemed to lose any desire to keep going). We have FIVE crowers from our Bantams now. They're all barely 4 weeks old! We'll definitely have to be choosey on which Bantam roos we keep as we clearly have more roos than would work for the amount of possible hens, and Silkies will probably get priority as they're just precious. But I'm really loving the Bantams so far too!

 

[newchickychick]

Ah, I nearly forgot… Sapphire Gems too. Or, they’re supposed to be and I see one seems like it’s got a little mohawk going. Maybe just another EE for that one. Either way! They’re quite sweet too. I love our EEs a lot though because of all the different colors and patterns. Every one is a surprise!

 

[newchickychick]

Well, Incubator #2 is on the way. That didn't take long. Hubby and I discussed gambling with one of Cackle's RARE potluck egg specials. We thought "oh, it could be about 8-12 weeks for the eggs! We can TOTALLY try to hatch a batch before it comes in."
Ordered our eggs. Not 30 minutes later, got an email saying the Cackle eggs will be here the 7th, while our others will get here Saturday. We thought we were being smart!

This way we won't have to even contemplate a staggered hatch at all. Bless hubby and his chickenabling. Got a cute new desk to set the incubators up on in here too! My computer desk/gaming setup is all pink so naturally, a pink desk. The temperature and humidity are pretty stable in here, and it's the lowest traffic room of the house, so we can keep it mild during incubation periods. And the garage where we brood (until we set up something in our third planned coop build to be able to brood outside at least!) is only a hunk of steps away, so getting the babies from incubator is only a few seconds of a trip.

Since it'll be our first ever attempts at hatching, I'm not TOO too optimistic, but the ebay sellers we found were gems, and Cackle... well, we love them for their chicks, and know it's a gamble we're happy to risk it all on.

Today's been busy - so busy I nearly forgot chickies arrive tomorrow and more ship tomorrow! Saturday is also the day we're going to go get Appa and the other Tolbunt chickies. EXCITING WEEK! Hubby will be here to sign for the eggs if they're delivered, thankfully. I'm already teaching him how to let them rest and getting a carton all ready for them.

 

[newchickychick]

Man, looked at the hardware cloth leaned up against our garage. The poor, poor delivery driver. 500 full feet of the stuff. At least we definitely have enough for the run. We’re going all hands on deck to speed build this week. I’ll have nice pics of the coop later!

We don’t have shingles on the outside yet as we were a bit time crunched from poor hubby having work and us having had like a near month of heavy heavy rain which killed our building time.
We’re also planning to add a second layering of wall, of course, but with it being SO HOT this summer so far, we figured the walls being as strong as they are with no gaps should be enough to help keep them safe until we add in the extra inside walls. It is a little… messy as our first ever build, but it can’t be too bad if the chickens love it… right?

I’m so very proud of my husband! He can actually lay on the roof with his heavy steel toed boots. He even jumped on it to test the security (and possibly to give me a heart attack too ). This was our first time building anything. He had helped his parents build their house on their homestead, but it was an entirely different type of building setup and was when he was younger so this was a serious undertaking for him to spearhead.