CHICKEN ADVENTURES!
Millicent hatched out 8 chicks on Monday! These were all barnyard surprise eggs from a friend down the road. This will be the second group that she has hatched out.
This project started with a dog kennel that someone gave us. DH suggested a coop and wouldn't it be fun to have chickens for eggs. So we made the coop this spring and got 4 layers. So far, so good. No chicks to worry about with the dogs, people lined up wanting to buy eggs, we have a plan! Well, Millicent promptly went broody so I convinced DH that getting some fertile eggs for her to hatch would be good, we'd have a few hens to add to the flock and we could butcher the cocks...
We did our research and thought that Barnevelders sounded like a fun dual purpose breed and since their Dutch, and I'm Dutch, it was destined to be... We found a breeder, drove and hour each way out to get them and came home with 14 eggs. We ended up with 10 babies that hatched.
Meanwhile, Dolores and Lucy (the 2 black astralorp mixes) are just laying up a storm... but no eggs from Betsy... and no eggs from Millicent because she's taking care of 10 babies. None of our customers have gotten a single eggs from us yet and I'm still having to buy eggs at the grocery... but everything will be okay because out of 10 chicks we should get several hens to add to our flock and they will begin laying next spring.
Well, we put the newly hatched chicks in a tractor and one promptly escaped. Julie, the pitbull mix was concerned and scooped it up in her jaws to bring it to me but she wasn't quite gentle enough. So now we have 9 and a patched up place in the tractor. They grow and grow and are soon big enough to free range in the back yard with the 4 hens and Annie and Julie the dogs.
Feathers start coming in and ooops! The breeder forgot to tell us about her project on breeding Blue Laced Red Wyandottes to her Barnevelders to get a Barnie Blue. So instead of having some good stock to develop into a nice Barnevelder line, I've got some beautiful mutts! Come late October, it is very obvious I only have 3 hens and Betsy still is a lazy layer. Dolores and Lucy are beginning to molt and Millicent goes broody again! So much for my plan...
So the new plan is to butcher 5 of the 6 roosters and Betsy between Christmas and New Years when I have off. Cedric, one of the Barney Blues, gets a pardon. So going into spring, I'll have 3 of my original hens and 3 from the first batch of chicks ready to lay. If there are any fancy chicks in this newest batch (Polish, silkies, or feathered leg breeds) I'll sell them this spring and keep the rest of the hens. Roosters will be butchered again. We'll see how quickly this plan gets derailed!
You're doing really well with that place. You mentioned and olive tree. Can you actually get olives that far north? What kind is it? I would love to be able to grow my own.
