Thursday, April 12, 2012

Easter chickens

I grew up on a hobby farm and my husband, Steve, grew up in a city.  We've combined our two lifestyles and have ended up with a small variety of animals.  We bought our house 5 years ago and I couldn't wait to bring livestock home.  Steve was a little harder to convince of how great it would be so I bought him 3 chickens to prove that not only could he handle "outside" animals but they're fun.  In time those 3 (named after Hugh Hefner's girlfriends at the time: Holly, Bridget, and Kendra) passed away for a variety of reasons.  We continued to introduce more and more chickens into our coop.  Sadly, at the end of the summer 2011, our chickens were attacked and killed.

We bought and hatched some replacements hens and kept them at my family's farm (Wintonbury Farm) for the winter.  On Easter morning, I picked out six (6) hens to bring home.  2 mystery breeds (mixes), 2 Columbians, 1 Rhode Island Red, and 1 Leghorn.


The purebred hens I chose were the most beat up looking ones.  I felt bad for them and I can't wait to watch their appearances change as their feathers grow in.  


I picked the black mystery breed hen because she's pretty.  I picked out the little brown hen because I wanted a broody hen.  Of the 3 brooding hens on the farm, she was the only one that didn't try attacking me :)  She is currently the only one with a name, "Broody Judy".

Since the hens had been with roosters, their first couple of eggs should have been fertilized (hopefully). I've marked the eggs and I'm allowing Broody Judy to sit on them.  Talk about a happy girl...


My son, Andrew, is a year old and he's not quite sure what to think about these crazy chickens yet.  We went into the coop today and he clung on tight.  We opened up the coop to the run for the first time and he enjoyed standing outside of the coop and watching the hens walk around in their run.  I have a feeling he wont be ending up with any of his father's city mentality. :)

Andrew and his Poppa









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8 comments:

  1. Dan LegerApril 12, 2012 at 10:41 PM

    Very nice Sue!

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    1. S LapApril 13, 2012 at 10:50 AM

      Thanks Dan! I was a little bit hesitant about blogging but I think this might be fun :)

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  2. UnknownApril 13, 2012 at 10:04 AM

    This is awesome Sue...I love your background and photos. I look forward to following along!

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    1. S LapApril 13, 2012 at 10:52 AM

      Thanks Becky. At some point I'll change the page around and use one of my own picts for the background but for now I like this one.

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    2. AprilApril 17, 2012 at 12:13 PM

      I like the background. It works.

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    3. S LapApril 18, 2012 at 9:58 PM

      Thanks April

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  3. mlaiuppaMay 17, 2012 at 10:19 PM

    I'm so glad you and Steve are carrying on for Richard. I'm sure he is happy his bees are being looked after. I'll have to wait a few years for chickens until my dog passes away. I have a local organic nursery and the owner lives on site. He has a small "petting zoo". Chickens which supply him with eggs and meat. A turkey with a harem that supplies his his thanksgiving meal. I'm not sure if he's to the point he's selling the youngsters yet. I know he does sell chicks. He also has a horse, geese and goats. The goats supply milk and he's looking into cheese making. He also has several hives and I was gifted with half a jar of his first harvest of honey. It's nothing like Richard's. I'm not brave enough for bees. But I attended a free lecture he had at his house on chickens. I think someday I'll be able to do chickens. For now, it's just plants. My condolences on your tulips. I just lost two rose bushes to Mom's dog. She was at my house for a few days while I was dog sitting and she dug up my rose garden. I found one corpse that may or may not survive. It's just a twig with roots now. It will be two or three years before it recovers to the point it was. The mini-rose was declared officially dead today. It couldn't survive being buried in dirt with it's root ball exposed to the air. Thankfully she did not touch my new $65 Chihuly standard rose tree. She'd be sleeping outside for two weeks if she had.

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  4. S LapJune 17, 2012 at 9:43 PM

    Sorry, it took me a while to respond. I've been slacking on my blog recently and I've really got to get back to it :) I'm glad I read this today... on father's day because it reminds me more of my father. It's fun taking over some of his projects. Now that he's gone I realized there are so many things he did and I have NO idea how he kept up with everything. I'm sorry to hear about your rose bushes. That's much more tragic then my tulips! I sure hope those dogs have good personalities to make up for it, hehe

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