Something to Look Forward To

 

 

It’s inevitable. Chickens don’t live forever and they reliably only lay eggs for the first couple years.

Most of my chickens are close to four years old now, although I do have 3 chickens that are just over a year old. We have also lost a few chickens over the past four years, either through death or predation or a mystery disappearance. On a good day, our hens might give us 3-4 eggs. Most days we only receive 1-2 eggs.

For a family of five, that’s just not enough. We like to have green chile breakfast burritos more than once a week and my kidlets gobble up any pancakes or waffles I make using our hen’s eggs. And during the summer, one of our favorite lunches is a delicious egg salad sandwich. 

We need more eggs. Simple as that.

But I haven’t bought a factory-farmed, store-bought egg in almost 4 years now and I don’t want to start anytime soon. Fresh eggs from happy, free-range hens not only are healthier, they also taste better.

So I recently placed my order through Privett Hatchery and I’m beginning to feel like a kid waiting for Christmas! My chicks won’t arrive until June 23, because two of the breeds that I chose won’t be hatched out until then.

I can wait. But barely.

Just like an expectant Mother preparing for her newborn's arrival, I’ve been cleaning and preparing the indoor brooder and all it’s accessories (water bottle, feeder, lamp, bedding, etc). And getting the outdoor Mini-Coop/Quarantine pen, within the main coop, ready for this new flock of little biddies. My daughter, Jen, whom we fondly call The Chicken Girl, is beside herself with excitement for the chicks’ arrival.

And I am excited about the different breeds and “Coop Candy” I ordered. Privett’s is a local New Mexico Hatchery, located a few hours east of my small ranch. Four years ago a friend and I went into together to order our chicks. Some local Feed Stores also carry chicks, but the selection is usually slim with only 2-3 of the most common breeds, like Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons and Rhode Island or New Hampshire Reds. Nothing wrong with any of those breeds, but it’s just more fun to shop through a more varied and unique selection of chicken breeds. 

We already have Silver-Laced Wyandottes, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, Ameracauna, Japanese Silkie, Polish, Welsumer, Speckled Sussex, Brown Leghorn, Black Star and Buff Orpington.

So, when I ordered, I went with a couple of our favorite tried and true breeds, like the Speckled Sussex and the Ameracauna. And chose a few new breeds, too, like Blue Wyandotte, Golden-Laced Wyandotte, and Silver-Laced Cochin. Yep! Lots of lovely colors to brighten up our coop. I love it! 

Most Hatcheries have a minimum chick order, usually 25, for the safety of the chicks during shipping and since I was just starting out raising chickens back then, I only wanted a small flock. So going in together with a friend was the perfect solution. This time around, we want to raise a few chicks and sell them as pullets as there seems to be a large market for pullets because folks don’t want the extra work, mess, space, cost and the waiting of raising chicks to the laying hen stage.

We don’t mind. The chicks are one of the most fun parts of raising chickens, so we’re ordering 25 biddies and will probably sell 10 of them when they become pullets. We figure that the money we make from the sale of the pullets will pay for our entire order of chicks.

And we are also excited about hand-raising this batch, just like we did with our first, original flock of chickens, because we learned the hard way, that allowing our constantly broody Japanese Silkie, Mrs. Cotton to hatch out and raise chicks, while certainly convenient, caused the chicks to grow up less friendly and less willing to stand still to be picked up and loved on as adults.

We did manage to tame the chickens that we gave to Mrs. Cotton to raise, but they still aren’t as pet-like as our original batch of chickens that we held every day and hand fed. Back then, it was a common sight around here to find a chick or two in someone’s lap while they surfed the internet or watched a movie. And as soon as we sat down outside, it wasn’t long before a chicken hopped into our lap for some affection and snuggling.

All our old hens still try to jump into our laps, but they don’t jump as high as they used to.

So, it’s time to bring some new chickies into our flock.  

Let the Count Down begin!