Pay dirt!

FINNAALLLYYY! Big Red Henrietta #2 payed off and laid us our first egg! My kid was so excited to collect said egg and show the neighbor that he accidentally dropped and broke it. He then proceeded to cry for about 20 minutes he was so upset- sad really. He recovered when Henrietta "laid" another (surprisingly cold) egg.  I did not get a photo of the true first egg so maybe tomorrow I will post a picture.

Farewell Claude(ette), hello Henrietta #2

Unfortunately Claudette started crowing. In respect of being a good neighbor, we have returned him to the store and exchanged him for a big fat layer hen (who is not nearly as cute). Hopefully this big red hen will be a good layer. She got loose on the way home and all hell broke loose in the car. My kid ended up with a few scratches but in one piece. He now hates the new chicken. I am sure he will change his tune when get gets to collect eggs every day.

Breed?

In trying to figure out what type of breed the older chicks are (we now only have 2.. I have no idea where Henrietta went- I am guessing neighbor cat strikes again).  After some research I think both of them are Cochins- they have very feathery feet. They should have smallish brown eggs. Here is a link in case you would like to figure out what type of chickens you would want to invest in.. We just get whatever is available at the feed store. Maybe when we get more experienced in this I will order some other fancy chickens.

Waiting waiting

So I figure my bigger chickens must be around 12 weeks now.. not really sure when they hatched, but still no eggs. They don't look fully grown so maybe we have a few more weeks. The anticipation is killing me. I hope we don't hear crowing soon though as that would mean I would have wasted all of that time and effort on a bunch of cocks. Not unlike my college dating years.

New Flock Additions

So we figured we should replace some of the downed members of the flock- mostly to guarantee we have a few laying hens- and also because the Quality Feed Store had a straight run (meaning all pullets or female chicks) of Production Reds. So we got one of them at a whopping $2.75 (expensive for a chick)and also one of a breed called "Black Giant" who is thought by the feed store owner to be "probably a hen"- only time will tell. So now we are back at 5- one grey names CoCo, one yellow named Claudette, one brown smallish one named Henrietta, new baby red named Lucile, and new baby black named Blackie for now.. quite the colorful and fabulous flock. See how big the 3 older chicks are- hopefully they will start laying this month!! You can cut the excitement with a knife around here (not really).