Did you hear about Farmer Brown? They say he’s “out standing in his field.”
While we certainly claim no high level of achievement, our experiment with raising Chickens has been fun and rewarding so far. Here’s a little pictorial overview.
To re-cap: during her 6th grade year, especially when friends were showing animals at the local and state fairs, Maddee talked at length about how she’d like to join one of the agricultural student groups at school and raise an animal. In my naivete, I believed her, but not so much that I ran right out and bought a calf . We decided to start slow, and, since Oma’s farm had a ready-built chicken house, we decided on raising some chickens.
A baby Cornish White
I spent about two weeks and about $50 on renovating the coop – it was in great shape, but needed rebuilt inner and outer enclosures – and we were ready to add the birds.
When we brought them home from the Tractor Supply Company store, they were about 2 1/2 weeks old. We had selected all hens (at least that’s what we tried to do – it turned out we were right) and got two varieties – versions of the
Baby Rhode Island Red
Rhode Island Red and the Cornish Rock White.
About 6 to 8 weeks
After spending their first few weeks in a cardboard box under a heat lamp, the girls were ready to venture out into the world – at least the world inside the fenced yard at Oma’s place. They loved running around the yard, pecking and scratching, and got so strong that we had to clip their wings to keep them
The girls at six weeks old
Inspecting the Flock
inside the fence. We didn’t dare allow them true ‘free range’ because of the local predators, not least of which were Oma’s dogs which, while normally very sweet animals, couldn’t really be trusted to ignore their instinctive drives when confronted with peeping prey.
For the next few months, then, we had “pullets;” according to our sources that’s the technical term for pre-pubescent hens unable, yet, to lay eggs. Despite our best efforts, we lost three birds to predators – probably racoons, although we don’t rule out coyotes- on the way to our adult flock.
Summer was long, hot and dry; not particularly good weather for any agricultural endeavor. The pullets grew up and became – well, handsome, in their own way – but not productive. Their sixth month came and went, and they showed no sign of following the time-table listed in our manual for when egg production would begin. Mary assured us that cooler weather would turn the tide.
And she was right. September rolled in with its (relatively – very relatively) cooler temperatures, and soon we discovered our first small, white egg on the ground outside the coop. It was well shaped, with a strong shell, so we knew that things were coming along well.
One day's hen-house harvest
Maddee and her friend
The birds are fully grown, now, with beautiful plumage and
And Sadie with hers
proud combs. They are laying about 3 dozen eggs a week – they average one a day per bird! The whites lay the eggs we all see at the grocery store, but the reds lay beautiful brown eggs (they still taste exactly the same to me). We eat some, share some with family, and Maddee gets to sell some at school for pocket money.
A proud man - what can I say?
Of course, this activity became boring to Madeline within about two weeks of the chickens’ growing out of their ‘cute’ phase, so the family has taken to sharing the daily tending of the birds. So it goes – the allure of cheerleading and friends at school was too much. Still, I’m glad to have taken on this wonderful experiment in self sufficiency – I enjoy having those chickens around, with their cluck-cluck-clucking and bob-scratch-bob way of strutting around their little enclosure. I’m hoping they’ll be with us for quite a few more years.
Here's looking at you, chick?
Attack of the Fifty Foot Chicken?
