New Additions

Oh crap here we go... I know your thinking goats or something! HA HA!!

Jacob and I have wanted to rid ourselves of the Red Star chickens since they started laying. They've taken to noise making, not "singing," that I am fine with, but yelling and general noise making. Not in an unhappy chicken way either. I know that might not make sense but when chickens are unhappy they have a way of yelling that lets you know. This is different from the unhappy sound, its more like a conversation a REALLY LOUD ONE!! The "twins" the two red's I can't tell apart are the guilty ones.  They talk and yell all day long, which is a noise I can sometimes tune out, but Jacob can not. One has this guttural growl that is particularly annoying. It's more apparent in the summer when the windows are open all the time. So long story short, we're not sure if they are stew pot material or if we should sell them. They are a year and half old and still laying strong through the winter. Regardless they need to be removed from this farm, one way or another.

So I was looking on cragslist last week to see what kinda chicks were out there. We also checked out different hatcheries, but I didn't want to order 25+ birds and deal with selling the chicks we didn't want. I found a lady selling 12 week old Light Sussex pullets for $10 each. If I ordered and brooded birds I'd probably be into each bird $7 to get them to 12 weeks old. So I figured paying someone else to raise them to that age was worth $10 each. I contacted her and a deal was made for 5 girls.

Here they are. 

The Light Sussex won't lay as many eggs as the Red Star's but that's why we got a few more of them. I think I'd rather have a heritage breed than a production one. So the "babies" are in quarantine right now in my garage! LOL!! They have been in there for one week now, all seem fine. I am going to start this week on introducing them to the other girls. Since I don't want to be out of eggs, we'll keep our Red Stars until the Sussex start laying. Curious hasn't started laying since she molted, I have a feeling her being 3.5 years old is playing a part in jump starting that egg laying. Regardless she has a freezer pass because she is an awesome bird and she likes hugs. :o)

In the pictures the girls have blue zip ties around their feet, that was from being sexed, blue zip tie = girl. Shouldn't it be pink? Anyway, after all is said and done with the Red's we'll have 6 girls on site. Which will be more than enough for us, my parents, and our neighbor.