Chickens

We’ve been raising chickens for a number of years. I often write about them on my household and art blog Ms. Shoes.

Here’s a look at the process of starting a batch of chicks from 2008.

April 16, 2008

They rode home from Monroe Feed in a cardboard box.

They’ll be making their home in a repurposed puppy pen set up in the feed room for about 6 weeks.

It didn’t take them long to find the food!

I hate to admit it buy I already have a favorite. The little Egyptian Fayoumi. I suspect he’s a rooster but we’ll see.

The others are:

• 4 – Rhode Island Reds – We’ve had good luck with these before and they can become quite tame. Red Hen used to sit on the stable door and wait for someone to come by and scratch her back.
• 3 – Aracanas – For the pretty eggs.
• 2 – Gold Lace Wyandottes
• 1 – Silver Lace Wyandotte
• 1 – Buff Orpington
• 1 – Phoenix – A Japanese breed best known for the
  extravagant tails on the roosters. The hens are said to be very calm.

May 17, 2008

One month later and the chicken are ready to move outside. They actually spent most of the last month in the  shop rather than the barn because we had such unreasonably cold weather during the last half of April.

Over the last month we have moved the chicken coop. And gotten it  fixed up and painted. Saturday we finished putting the pop door on the coop and built a little yard for the chicks to use for the next month or so.  A properly large yard is in the works but putting down fence posts  in our rocky soil is not light undertaking. We have to get the backhoe out and put it on the tractor.

Being chickens they do not appreciate all the time and effort that went into creating such an exquisite chicken palace and prefer to hang out under the coop.

Jun 25, 2008

The chickens have out grown their little play-pen yard and need a real fenced yard. We built it last week. You can see the gory details on Ms. Shoes blog.

Meanwhile here are four portraits of our birds.

Aracana

Buff Orpington

Phoenix

Banty Frizzle