Adding to the Flock

When I retired I had received a gift card to Wilco Farm Stores from the chiefs and other staff members. The card was for $150 - a very generous gift. It didn't take long for me to decide what I would use it on - CHICKS! Wilco starts making chicks available toward the end of January and continues through to late spring. Then they have more during the month of September. 

We need to back up here a little...

My M.O. has been to add pullets in September so that by the time Spring rolls around, they will be ready to start laying. Last September I added six Buff Orpingtons and six Sapphire Blue Plymouth Rocks. As of today we only have two of the six Buffs, but all of the Saffies. I'm a little disappointed, but those little Buffs decided to explore and didn't get into their house one night. Farm life right? We usually lose at least one once they are outside full-time, but to lose three at once? That was new.

One Buffy and One Saffy

The young hens are getting close to laying. They have been making the laying hen sound which is kind of a There's-Something-I-Gotta-Push-Out sound. In the next week or so we'll be moving all of the hens to the back of the property where it is nice and clean and not yet poopy or muddy. The young hens will be joining them out there as well. 

Okay, so yesterday Tom and I went out to Wilco in Battle Ground and I picked out a couple of breeds that I have been wanting to add, but either didn't want to spend the amount that they were priced at or they were not available. So, to give myself an idea of what might be available I checked out what they might have in stock starting this month. The breeds that I decided on were the Speckled Sussex, Cuckoo Maran and the Delaware. Of the three I really wanted the Speckled Sussex, but they didn't have that one. However, they did have the Cuckoo Maran (the most expensive of the three). The other breed that I decided on was the Easter Egger, which was listed as an Ameraucana Easter Egger on the receipt. I'm not sure what that means, but I wanted to add another color of egg to the mix. As the name implies, Easter Egger, they lay blue or green eggs. The Maran's eggs should be a dark brown - I've been wanting dark brown eggs!

The BEST part - during this month Wilco has a deal on chicks, buy two get one free. Score! Before I knew about the sale I was thinking that I would pick out three different breeds and get six of each. After I read through the last Wilco email that I got I decided to go ahead and get a dozen - which means that I would only pay for eight chicks. After my purchase I had to study the receipt to figure out how they charged me. This is the weird part, the Ameraucana EE's price was posted at $3.99, but the receipt showed $3.89. The Maran's were $5.99, but were $5.89 on the receipt. There must have been some other crazy deal that I'm not aware of, I'm not complaining. Just confused. Meh...In the end I got four of the Ameraucana's at no charge and paid for the remainder. Now, I have quite a bit left on the gift card, so I might just wait until fall and add more layers. We'll see.

A little vid from their ride home from Battle Ground...

These littles were quite lively yesterday afternoon I swear they grew!

So, why are we adding to the flock? Well, many of the girls are from our original 2017 flock and the average egg laying cycle of a hen is around two and half to three years. Rather than continuing to feed hens that are no longer producing eggs, we would rather add to the flock and process the older hens and use them as stewing hens. Yep, a purpose for everything. We are a little behind as far as culling the flock goes, but that should happen sometime this spring. Well, that's what I'm hoping.

Just how many laying hens do we have? The simple answer is that I don' know. I think a year ago we had around 30-ish hens. This number included the 10 hens that we received from one of the captains at the fire station. Currently I think we have maybe 25 hens, but 7 of them are not producing anything so the new buffs and saffs are their replacements. Once the new pullets are ready to join the flock we may be up to 30+ hens. 

In a way I'm ready to have eggs coming out of our ears and running out of space to store all of them! Since our last sale of one dozen eggs last month we have had enough eggs to meet our own needs. 

My goal is to have plenty of eggs available for those friends/neighbors who have been coming to us to buy eggs. Once all of the hens are laying we'll be able to use the egg money to offset the feed costs. Winter is not our favorite time as the hens are not laying much, if at all. There have been a few days when there were NO eggs. Fortunately, we haven't been totally out of eggs because the ducks are still laying. It would kill me to actually buy eggs at the store. Especially since we haven't bought eggs since the summer of 2017!

Farm Life, Best Life!

New Babies

Sunday morning we had a nice surprise of two ducklings under Betty. At first when Tom came in to tell me he didn't know that there were two. Later on I went out to take a look (or listen) and I thought there were two.

So, I REALLY wanted to see what she had going on underneath her, but I didn't want to disturb her too much - she's a serious momma! When Tom came out I asked him to lift her up so that I could take a photo of the duckling(s).

As it turns out, both of the eggs that Tom gave her about 4 weeks ago hatched...

Fully satisfied with the photo I had taken Tom placed Betty back in her box. Then I went back to doing this, that and the other thing outside.

This is where things went sideways. I don't remember what all happened after taking the photos, but I do remember that after a brief discussion, I thought that maybe all three of them should go into the brooder. I think this is what happened next...I helped Tom bring the brooder into the garage. Seriously that morning really was a blur. I went back into the house and was playing a game on my kindle and he came in a short while later to say that one of the ducklings had died. I don't know if this was inevitable or if we contributed to its early demise, but that's just the way things go.

It is possible that when she was being returned to the box that she put all of her weight on one of them. Possible, but really how plausible. I would think that she would have felt the baby underneath her somehow. Or maybe that one got smothered somehow and maybe just revealing them was just coincidental or something.

We'll never know, but I do know that we just can't beat ourselves up. Maybe we're only meant to add one extra duckling this time - who knows for certain?

After a brief period of grieving...I decided that I need to move forward with my plan. Going to Wilco to pick out some chicks that we'll use to replace some of the older ladies. Also, I was trying to figure out if Betty would accept babies from her own kind. After church I made my way over to Wilco in Battle Ground to take a look at what they had in the store. I wanted to get chicks that hadn't been in the store for a long period of time so that the chicks and the duckling would be of similar size for a minute.

My first choice was a White Leghorn. A nice white chick to add to the bunch, but these chicks were already starting to develop their first flight feathers, so I decided against them. Then I thought that maybe I needed to add a different colored chicken to the flock and one that would lay something other than a brown egg. There were Ameraucanas and Olive Eggers - both expensive. I didn't want to spend a lot of money for what I feel is like a novelty egg color. The Olive Eggers were $7.99 each - YIKES!

Besides price the other deciding factor is whether or not a chicken breed is a heritage breed or not. The Olive Egger is a breed that is a cross between a dark brown egg laying chicken and an Ameraucana (I think). I don't like the look of the Ameraucana, I don't care what color the egg is...the muffs are weird. So the next choice that was interesting to me AND heritage, the Sicilian Buttercup.

These littles are so cute! I absolutely love the markings! The Mottled Javas were cute with their little "capes." The markings on their faces are so unique. They will look like this:

photo credit chickencoopplans.com

It's hard to tell what size this little hen is. Is she a bantam is she regular size? I can't tell. They do come in "regular" size and bantam. The sign at Wilco did not say bantam, so I can assume that they will be a regular sized hen. The comb will be interesting to see. They don't have a single comb, but two single combs that joins in the front and in the back - forming somewhat of a crown. Their legs are also supposed to be a willow green color.

So, I get the chicks and arrive home to introduce one of them to Betty. As it turns out Miss Betty didn't want to accept the chicks. What I realize now is that I probably should have introduced them to her at night, but that wasn't really an option as we had our Small Group Sunday night and the last thing I wanted to do is try to put chicks underneath Betty. Especially since she is so very sensitive about us being around anyway. We just get the evil eye from her...

This is the look only a little more mean.

So, I'll be raising the Buttercups for now and then at some point we'll have to come up with a different set up for them. It will be a while before we can integrate them into the flock anyway.

We love the babies! So much that I had a dream that we were trying to craftily slip some new ducklings under Betty. Which I thought about when I woke up and thought it was for real!

Oh...babies everywhere! Fun times on the farm!