Look at what we got last night! We have been wanting to get chickens for quite a while now. In fact, we've had the coop ready since last spring. Well, we found some free chickens on Craigslist and they were less than an hour away . . . so we decided to go for it! We picked them up last night. There were four chickens and three ducks available, and we took them all. We planned to give all the ducks to some friends (who already have both chickens and ducks), but we ended up just giving them one and keeping the other two for now. We may give them to our friends later if we don't get any eggs from them (actually we think one is female and the other's male). Three of the chickens are mixed breed (reddish in color) and the other one is a spotted Sussex. We gave them all names, because it's just more fun that way! Of course, I might change my mind on that if we end up eating them eventually . . . ;)Anyway, here are some more pictures for you. This one is Josie Pye (spotted Sussex). She's the most flighty of the chickens and the most uppity. :) She also is hard to get a good picture of, because of that!
The other three chickens are very friendly. Lucy is the most friendly and apparently rules the roost. She seems to tell the other girls what to do. :) Here are Julia and Josiah petting Lucy (the darker one) and Buttercup.
Josiah feeding Lucy.
Sam with Lucy.
The other chicken that I didn't post pictures of, is Marilla Cuthbert. She looks a lot like Lucy, only a little lighter, and she has more points on her comb.The ducks are rather skittish and also difficult to photograph right now. Hopefully they will warm up to us more eventually! It was quite the adventure trying to catch them to get them into the coop tonight. :) This is Jemima. We named her mate Puddleduck.
And look! We already got two eggs! We are pretty sure at least one of the eggs was from Lucy; not sure about the second one. They were both in the same place, though, so maybe they were both from the same chicken? (Can chickens lay more than one egg at a time--somebody clue me in, I'm still very much a novice!) We had scrambled eggs and pancakes tonight for supper. :) Mmmm . . . it's very cool to eat eggs from our own chickens!
I'm sure I'll be posting more about our little menagerie as time goes by. Hope you enjoyed this little peek!
5 comments:
HOW FUN!!!! Very jealous of you! We've been wanting chickens too but we live in the city so it's a no-go. And your name choices are great! Especially Jemima and Puddleduck. We love that funny story! Keep us posted on how it all goes!
Very cool!! I heard rumor that we can have up to 3 chickens in our city but...we have a giant German Shepherd behind us that already barks waaaaaaay too much...so I will just keep buying farm fresh eggs for now. :-) Free chickens - cool!!
Yay! I want chickens, too! The names were an excellent idea. I love them all - especially Marilla :-)
I know absolutely nothing about chickens & how they lay eggs. Have fun studying up on that one! I didn't know you could eat duck eggs; am I super ignorant or what? When I was a little girl I don't think I wanted anything like I wanted a pet duck. Isn't that funny?
Can't wait to see more pics as they get used to their new home!
As far as one chicken laying more than one egg/day. Suppose it is possible but not likely. You will probably find them all laying in one or two places regularly. We have multiple nest boxes and 15 or so chickens in the same coop and they all lay in 2 of the boxes and ignore the others.
Our little "lame duck" had a fun day on the pond yesterday, but has not made friends with the muscovies. She or he seems to get along OK with the Khaki's. We are a little concerned because we haven't seen her eat yet. She's obviously getting plenty of water, but doesn't seem interested in food, at least not yet. Perhaps she needs to see the others digging in and that will show her by example where the food is.
Do you know what feed they gave the ducks?
So exciting your hens had two eggs already.
Our little "lame duck" seems to be quite tame. I was holding her last night after Mr. D chased her off the pond.
Looks like the hens are happy.
I'm so happy for you. What wonderful timing. Looks like the kids are really enjoying them. Instant egg layers! That's awesome. The waiting for them to get old enough to lay eggs can be rough.;)
I agree with Mrs. Doug it's possible to get two eggs in a day, but not likely. Anytime we have gotten more than we should we could always trace it back to an egg that got over looked from the day before. ;)
Post a Comment