Chicks, Chicks, and More Chicks!

Recently, with the addition of our 3 full-grown chicks from last year, we have had an egg explosion. It's a rough guess, but I'd say we average about 8-12 eggs a DAY! We only have about 10 hens, and I'd say that maybe 7 of them are religious layers. Our family loves eggs, but we certainly can't keep up with 8-12 a day, so Adam has been taking a lot of them to people at work and we've been passing them off to friends and family. Since doing so, Adam and I have had several offers to pay for eggs...on a regular basis. Now, we live out in the sticks, and a LOT of folks out here have chickens, and some sell eggs. I wouldn't have thought the demand would have been so high...but apparently it is. Adam has talked about the kids selling eggs ever since we moved in. I just sorta passed the suggestion off as something to do in the far future. It was a good idea, and not so foreign to me. When I was a kid, I had a flower stand where my mom and I sold arrangements of dahlias and greens. I think I was in the 4th grade when I started doing that. When we moved in to this house, Synnove had just turned 3 and Soren was a mere 1 1/2. I had a hard time imagining the kids selling eggs, but time has passed SO fast and the kids are already pitching in with the animals daily (sort of).

Adam decided, that with so many offers, it was time to start beefing up our brood. Fortunately, Adam had anticipated having many hens, and built the ULTIMATE chicken coop and run. There is a total of 12 nests in our coop, but chickens are weird and like to share nests. We usually find eggs in 2-3 of the nests every day. Anyway, Adam picked up 15 chicks at the feed store on Saturday. I don't know how we'll keep up!

The kids are so sweet with the chicks, but the chicks are fast little movers! Soren ended up squeezing one too hard...oops :(

Tayahnna was over for my parents' anniversary party and got to play with the chicks. Can you tell the difference between these last two pictures and the 3 above? Yeah, I did get a new camera...(thank you Adam and the kids!), but it took horrid pictures, so I took it back. I'm still using my old one. Sorry honey, it's nothing personal :)

By the way, you would be doing us a great favor by saving your egg cartons and passing them on to us!

Our First Chicks!

One of our hens started "setting" a little over a month ago. That means that the hen will start sitting on her eggs and won't leave them only to eat/drink. Anyway, she had a whole bunch of eggs under her (a "clutch" of eggs) that were likely unfertilized. Our rooster is of a very small breed and can't quite fertilize a normal sized hen. So, after two weeks of "setting" I talked to my Aunt Alice to get some advice. She was pretty sure that none were fertilized and that she would bring over a few fertilized ones from her brood. I think she brought about 6 eggs of all colors and sizes and did a switcheroo. Our setting hen didn't know the difference. We moved her to a large cage 2 weeks later and checked the eggs. One, for sure, was no good...so we were down to 5.

A week after we moved her, we heard a little "cheep" and found that the hen was outside the nest keeping at least one little chick warm. We let her be. There was one egg left unhatched, so we were hopeful that we had 4 chicks.

The next day (yesterday) I took the kids out to show them that the chicks had hatched! Hens are quite protective of their little babes so it took some coaxing to get her to move so we could see how many we had. It was so funny, cause it was like the chicks were stuffed up in her feathers and they kinda fell out. We have 3 chicks, and we don't know what happened to the 4th. There are a few possibilities one could imagine.

The kids, of course, were very excited and wanted to hold them. I took two of the three out. Soren wasn't as keen as Synnove, but they both enjoyed playing with them for a couple of minutes.

At one day old the chicks are quite agile...even jumping over the kids' boots.

Soren, after holding the chick once, didn't want to anymore, and would only "poke" them.

Oh, so cute!! The 3rd chick looks like this one.

I don't know why this pic ended up sideways...that's not how I downloaded it.