Summer turns to Autumn 2016

As I've mentioned before, the master plan has always included Buff Orpingtons.  It slowly dawned upon me that first year that I did not, in fact, have those mixed use mothers.  The second year of chickens- 2016- this was remedied. 

We added two buffs and two Easter eggers to the mix, and were looking forward to lovely colored eggs and home hatched chickens.

As anyone who's lived with little chickens knows, however, the bloom quickly fades off of that rose.  The day comes all too soon when you simply can't abide another moment of the messy, annoying youngsters brooding indoors with you.  At this point out. they. go. Ready. or. Not!  Our chicks, or rather, we, reached this milestone on July fourth 2016, despite not really having an exit plan fleshed out.   I wasn't confident throwing them all together in the chicken coop immediately was wise, so I took a probably dumber approach, and housed the younger group in the run section of the the coop.  We then had a total of nine hens and two roosters, which instead of adding to our big rooster's harem as we'd planned, divided it into an even smaller group.

 Still, things seemed to work out, for the most part.  Eventually, we put the youngers in the actual coop, and that too seemed OK at first.  The first signs that it wasn't ok was when a couple of the ladies began roosting in the near by tree, and then the goat barn, instead of their coop. After a week or so of getting them disciplined enough to turn into the coop, they started vanishing. :(.  No signs of fowl play, as they'd say, nor of any intra rooster animosity. . . they just disappeared.  All told, three of the Rhode Island Reds, the Black Easter egger, and red rooster ended up gone.

Emptier Chicken Yard

I expected to find them at the coop door one morning, or at least find bodies, somewhere, but nary a single clue surfaced.  One gal had even been decked out in a bright yellow saddle, and scraps of that haven't turned up, either.  So. . . not the first loss, we did lose a little chicken to accident the first year. However, these losses seem some how preventable- I should of housed them more securely, had a better plan for integration been wiser and kinder and forseen the looming problem in time to avert it.

None of those things were options, though, so instead we decided to use the last bit of outdoor work time adding to and beefing up animal housing.

So, where were we...?

Well hello again.  April 1st has rolled around once more, bringing with it the need for an end of year update.  Looks like I have a lot of catching up to do first, though.  It's been quite a while since I've posted.  When last I did, these juvenile chickens were still living in the cheese making-seed starting-laundry-chicken growing room, and I was still tickled pink to have finally brought some 'real' buff orpingtons into the mix.  We had also started some raised beds in the garden area for our first annual vegetable plantings.  Gardening is of course one of the major lynch pins of the homesteading type life style, but if we had to survive on what we grew last season we'd have had only a month or so of meals before sub coming.  Plenty of those peas grew, and I was excited to be able to save some of those plants seeds for this year.  We also enjoyed plenty of green peppers and paste tomatoes, but no where near enough to can.  The potatoes were stunted, too.  I tried planting them in straw, and though that is successful for many, it was not for us.  Carrots and turnips were a no show.  The chickens ate much of the corn seed before it grew, and though the  pumpkins were going gang busters, they ended up drowning in a sea of weeds.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending upon one's view, the garden's sub-sub-sub par performance was 100% operator error.
It is far less clear where to lay blame for the chicken's bumpy road, though.  In fact, not knowing what was going on or what the ultimate resolution would be is why I quit posting- it was the next subject I planned to address, and to this day, I still don't know the who what where whens or whys of the situation.  But those details can wait till the next post.

Hot chick time!

Glad to share that the laundry- cheese making- seed starting- chick brooding room has officially moved into the hot chicks phase.  Once again I wanted a few Orpington to take over the work of raising the littles, and once again it looks like I waited too late.  Or not.  Think I may try hatching my own Orps if I can't find any at the local stores.  For some reason, I don't like the idea of having chicks mailed to me.  Irrational, I know.    

Meet my Dirty White Boy!

or Tiny 'Tude,  as he's known on the inter nets!

I was tickled to get a starter flock for my birthday!  I had waffled on which breed, what age, where to put them for quite a while, and surprised everyone when I waited so long to deem it "chicken time!"  Hard to believe we've had this place 18 months already, and are just now turning our attention to the live stock.  Include the ten years or so I've been nurturing this life style dream  and  it's been even longer.  So long, in fact, that I'd begun to worry that the
enthusasm had dampened.  Fortunately a sense that the time was right hit me full force, and I was practically wiggling with excitement knowing we'd reached this phase of the plan.  Finally:  CHICKEN TIME!

I first explored buying some one year Easter Eggers from a fella not far away.  The idea was basically they'd be old enough to survive my inexperience.  That didn't work out though, since his birds were a little flightier than I wanted.


So, after poking around I settled on 6 Buff Orpington hens,  2 Easter Eggers, and a Buff Orpington Rooster for my wish list.  I wrote this down in my clearest hand writing on a half dozen pieces of paper, trusting that I'd soon be *surprised*...and to no one's surprise, it worked, and I was.

Orschelns was winding down their chick days sales at this point, and didn't have any males left, so we got just the 8 hens.  I started sourcing that Orpington roo I wanted, but held off buying one thinking there was a decent chance one of my gals would prove to be a dude.  That was four weeks or so ago, and watching the lil one in the pic develop an ever bigger and redder comb has done nothing to disuade me from the idea that I scored that fella I wanted after all.  Now the question is, is s/he really an Orpington?  Heck if I know.  Not sure about any of the breeds, actually.  Time will tell.  I went with the Orps as they're calm, decent layer dual purpose birds, according to their press.  I also wanted the broodiness so I could "work less, profit more."

So far, so good.  Now it's time to decide where the chicken tractor coop- chicken yard starts out.  We've only had one AI case in a five county radius, but I'm still very concerned about staying on top of that potential problem.  I know we have cats, dogs, owls, possum, snakes, rats, cayote and ground hogs.  Also have deer, rabbit and mice, but am guessing that they are of no threat. 

I'd hoped to set the tractor in the garden, and run the chickens through it, and through the pastures after goats had been through.  Now I'm leaning more towards the "you can date when you're 30" err, I mean, keeping them in the laundry room and SAFE indefinitly.

Been told that really isn't an option LOL, so:  any one have opionions on how close is too close when it comes to chicken condos?