The Start

So my friend Patricia thinks I should write a blog about all the crazy shit I do from raising chickens and bees to cooking, gardening, hunting and raising chis.  I think this will be very fun and maybe someone would be interest to read it.  So here goes another adventure.

I started keeping chickens about 6 springs ago.  We had moved into our new house and one of the first things we did was build the garden and the coop.  Tom built me a coop that could house 10 hens. It is the cutest coop ever green with pepto pink trim.  It is just the right size with good light and the hens call it home.

I love to let the girls out of the coop first thing in the morning.  We have a ramp that goes down to a stump.  Some of the girls walk gracefully down, others jump off the top with a great harrumph and a flapping of wings.  I call this chicken T.V.

The eggs that your back yard chickens lay are unreal.  The deliciousness contained in one of the brown, white, green or blue eggs is unsurpassed.  The egg whites are clear with just a tinge of yellow.  The yolkes, oh the intense orange yolkes. These yolkes stand up above the white and taste like a ray of sunshine.  I have trouble eating store bought eggs now.

Any way, I went to the ranch supply store because we are on our second round of chickens and they are tapering off their laying.  My plan is to cull half the flock, keeping the girls that are still laying.  The girls who are staying are the 2 leghorns, and the 2 Coco Marins.  I might also keep the one Americuna that is laying.  The rest of the girls go.  George wants to eat 2, and Tomato Queen Amanda will rehome the rest of the girls.

So I have 6 new baby chicks.  They come from the Ranch supply store at 2 days old.  They are tiny little balls of flu.  Exactly what a spring chick should look like.  The ranch supply store gets a variety of chickens, ducks and turkeys weekly thru the first part of the summer.  I got a jump with the first batch because they had the most types that I wanted.  I picked 2 Americunas, which lay blue or green eggs.  Three Production Reds, they lay brown eggs and one Bard Rock, which lay brown eggs.

I love the Bard Rock because they are the type of chicken that you think of in the story book.  Big, black and white striped, round hen back end and bright red medium comb.  Bard rocks are also a friendly bird which warrents names like Zebra Butterfly, or Zeb.

I am always amazed that even though my children name the chickens, they are not above eating them.         But that is another story.