We Have Chickens!!!

So, today was the day! We drove out to get some chickens from a man and a woman who had posted an ad on the "Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin" for the state of GA.

We had spent the last couple of months researching chickens, getting our chicken house ready, building laying boxes, and deciding what kind of chickens we wanted. We knew we would only be getting hens [much to my son's dissappointment] because we live in a subdivision and can't have a Rooster crowing at all hours. We want our neighbors NOT to dislike us or the chickens. :)

The children spent a good deal of time researching and reading about different breeds and they each had a particular breed they wanted. This man and woman had almost all the ones we were looking for, though they ran out of the one my son wanted, so he had to make a second choice. [We may go back for the "Black Australorps" though when they have some more chicks of that breed in a couple of months - that's what my son wanted and they are really pretty, gentle chickens].

We thought we were just stopping by to buy a few chickens, but it turned out to be the *coolest* field trip ever, meeting the nicest folks you can imagine!

The man and woman we bought them from have a whole farm, about 45 minutes from us. They have a lake with tons of geese and ducks. They have probably 100 different chickens. They had 300 guineas, which I had never seen in real life before - they moved in these really fast little herds! They also show cats and had a bunch of cats and they had two lab/great pyrenese mix dogs that were the sweetest things!

They spent an hour and a half showing the kids [and us] all their different chickens and coops and how they take care of them and all their ducks, geese, incubators... it was really cool! And they had a bunch of 11 week old baby chicks and the kids got to pick which ones they wanted. They also sent us home with a dozen eggs the kids got to watch them collect from the various chicken coops!

It was REALLY fun - way more than we would have thought! We will definitely be keeping in touch with them and buy our future chickens there [and if any of you GA people want to know where to get good chickens, I can send you their info!]

So, we left with six chickens - one for each of the kids and one for me. My husband is excited about the chickens too, but did not feel he needed a "personal" chicken of his own. LOL!

The chickens are still babies really - they have all their feathers now and you can see what they will look more or less like when they are adults, but they are still so small. They are going to live in our house in a large spare dog crate for the next week or two and then they should be big enough to go live outside in the chicken house/yard area [we are building them their own fenced yard area].

The chickens are really sweet and let the kids hold them - and the kids ALL did a great job holding them gently and just loved their chicken! [even the 2yo was gentle - wow!] These chickens will start laying around 6 months of age, so sometime around April or May we will start getting our own eggs from them!

Here are a couple of random shots of them, and then shots of each child with their chicken:






Here is Monkey4 [2yo] with her chicken, who is a "Dominique". She is a black and white chicken, who Monkey4 has named "Yellow". LOL!


Here is the Baby Monkey ignoring her chicken, a "New Hampshire Red". She is a very gentle and sweet chicken, who Monkey1 has named "Sissy" on the Baby Monkey's behalf since Sissy was protecting my chicken from the more aggressive chicken. It was amazing to watch actually, and Monkey1 thought this chicken was acting like a "big sister" to the picked on chicken, thus the name "Sissy". Baby Monkey didn't find the chickens that interesting at all, which I thought was a little surprising.


Here is Monkey3 [4yo] with her chicken, a pure bred "Araucanas". These chickens lay different colored eggs [they are nicknamed "Easter Egg Chickens"] and Monkey3 thought that was a very cool trait! Their eggs range from blue to green to pinkish/brown. Monkey3 named her chicken "Rainbow" [for obvious reasons :) ].


Here is Monkey2 [6yo] aka "The Boy" with his chicken. She is a "Golden Laced Wyandotte" While she was not his first choice of breed, he really likes her. She is a "show chicken" and he can raise her to show at the Fair and stuff [though I don't think he's old enough]. You can't tell it yet, but they had other grown hens like her there and they are *gorgeous*! He named his chicken "Padme AmiBUACKa" [after Padme Amidala in Star Wars of course LOL!]. However, Padme has proven to be our "bully chicken". All the others are calm and sweet and she keeps pecking and picking on my little chicken [who is also the runt, a "Partridge Rock" pictured below in Monkey1's arms]. I am a little worried that Padme might be a boy [it is still a little hard to discern the boys from the girls at 11 weeks]. The people who sold her to us said they would gladly exchange her for a girl if she turned out to be a boy. But supposedly you see the aggressive behavior like this more from Roosters than from Hens, so we will see...


This is my chicken in Monkey1's arms, and her name became "Francesca" today. She kept getting picked on and didn't look too good so I was a little worried about whether she would make it after we got home, and I said a prayer to St. Francis and she *immediately* perked up, so of course Monkey1 said we should name her "Francesca" after St. Francis. So we did. :) I also separated her from Padme by dividing the crate they were in with a divider. That seemed to make all the difference and I really hope she lives!


And here is Monkey1 with her sweet little chicken, a "Buff Orpington". These are supposed to be extremely gentle chickens, and so far she definitely lives up to it. Monkey1 named her "Buttercup" because she's a pretty gold color.

So... so far so good! We are all really excited about the chickens. The children are keeping track of our expenses as a homeschool project and they plan to sell any extra eggs we get. If this goes well for the next few months, I may add some more hens in the summer and build up an actual little flock of layers so the kids can have a little side business of sorts.

Either way, it has been a fascinating learning experience for us!


And, last but not least, Baby Monkey found buying chickens and taking care of them to be absolutely exhausting. She fell asleep in her high chair tonight during dinner! It was both cute and pathetic all at the same time.