The Journey of our Chickens!

It all began for us in early April, when I went to the feed store to pick up horse feed and our new chicks.  I had ordered 5 Light Brahma pullets and 5 Polish Standard pullets.  For those of you new to chickens...pullets are very young hens that haven't started laying yet.  The people that raise the chicks for sale also sex them so you don't have to buy any roosters if you don't want them.  We already have a rooster...a beauty that regularly gifts me with feathers for my art.

The yellow are the Brahmas & the colors are Polish

 Their first day outside

 

When we received them, they were hatched just a day before.  They lived in the box with a heat lamp to keep them warm.  As they grew they were moved to a bigger box and when they didn't need heat anymore,  to their bigger chicken house. 

 

                                      A close up of a Polish chick

At first we let them Free Range during the day and locked them up at night.  Until one day sister Fox came to visit and we were minus a chicken in broad daylight!  We live very close to woods on 2 sides and the wild ones just thought we brought them lunch!
             The next day we enclosed their house and yard with a fence.

They were growing very fast...some faster than others!  Then the roosters started to crow!!!  I did not order any roosters!!  We ended up with 4 out of the 5 Polish Standards being roosters!  As we all know...roosters do not lay eggs and make a lot of noise crowing ALL...DAY...LONG!!
I took the 4 roosters back to the feed store and gave them to the nice people that run the store.  I do believe they fed their young family with the hapless cocks.

Now we fast forward to September.  It is getting close to time for the hens to start laying their eggs.  A grandson came to visit for a few weeks and we enlisted his help in building the nest boxes for our girls.

Dillon did a great job using recycled wood!

                   Here is Lil' Sis our Polish hen inspecting the new "digs"!
Well it didn't take long for those dear girls to do what they are with us for.
Bear in mind that when hens start laying, their eggs are very, very small and increase in size as the hens age.  This is very exciting for us to have fresh eggs from our own hens again!

 

 

Please visit again soon and I'll show what I make out of the shells of the eggs of our wonderful hens!

Thank you for taking a look...I hope you have enjoyed!!

Diane