Category: Ameraucana

Ameraucana, Australorp, Backyard, Buff Orpington, chicken tractor, chickens, chicks

Chicks are Here!

Olof

I did it! I actually did it! I got chicks. We are now proud to introduce you to the newest additions to our family the feathery 4! No names yet. Need some help on that point. We have 2 Amereacanas (the brown ones that will lay some cool looking greenish blue eggs), one Buff Orpington (the blond one) and an Australorp (the black one). All four are 3 weeks old but boy are the Amereacanas big! Thought the Buff and the Australorp  would be the heavyweights but the Amereacanas are so much heavier.

Finding that I will have to change out their bedding twice a day while they are inside. They are stinky! Thankfully my husband is almost done with the chicken tractor and I will be able to take them outside as soon as they finish this ugly stage of shedding their baby feathers and getting their big girl feathers.

Welcome chickies! Now what to name you? Any ideas form you dear readers?

Ameraucana, Australorp, box, brooder, chick, chicken, chicks, Cube, egg, Eglu, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Orpington, Tulsa

Got Chickens on the Brain

Olof
Yep, I have got chickens on the brain bad! Yesterday I drove all over Tulsa County trying to find the chickens I wanted for my backyard coop (that we have yet to build). I want colorful eggs and good birds. I chose an Ameraucana, a Buff Orpington, and Australorp. I also want some Icelandic hens and will be hatching some out later this spring. I found a farm here that has all 3 breeds for me and a breeder of Icelandics sending me some eggs from Washington. I´m so excited! So then I have green or blue eggs, brown eggs and white eggs!


Yesterday we set up a brooder box for the chicks and now we sit and wait. I’m using a cardboard box until I have organized my deep bins in the basement and free one up to use for chicks.  Hubby is putting together my coop this weekend. Is it so odd to be so excited about feathery farm animals? The boys keep asking “Can we go get the chickens now?” I´ll be letting them decorate the outside of the box tomorrow.

I’ve read and researched and getting my chicks now against a wiser person’s advice of waiting til April (I do value this advice just to impulsive to go by it). Just getting a little start means I am just that much closer to having eggs, hopefully. Some of the birds I´m getting are even 3 weeks old already. Hope the stench in my house won’t get too bad if I change bedding every day until it is warm enough to put them outside.

Yay for being a step closer to being more self sufficient!

Is anyone else getting ready for spring? If so, how?

Here is the book I have been reading on the subject of chickens the last 2 days.

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Dreaming of owning one of these Eglu Cubes.


And getting some of these for my kids to run around in the backyard in this spring.