Chickens

We mentioned earlier we raise chickens, we thought we would share a few pictures. Both of us have always wanted to raise chickens, two years ago we figured we would jump in with both feet. Our first step was a coop. When I was a young lad, there was a dilapidated wooden chicken coop on the property, but I didnt know anything about one. Lucky for us, a local man designs and makes coops. We found one we liked and bought it. We placed it in our back yard near the house. We get a real nice breeze here at "The Acre" and if we put it anywhere else, we were pretty sure it would get toppled, so we use the house as a wind break.
Next was a trip to Tractor Supply for chicks. We didnt know the first thing about chickens and made our purchase based pretty much on the color of eggs the birds would lay, we both wanted brown eggs. We bought six "Colombian"  birds, then went back and bought six more "Americana" birds. We asked for all hens, we ended up with five roosters and seven hens after they matured. Helpful hint: You cant have five roosters in your barnyard. The rooster terminator eliminated three roosters from the group, leaving two, both Americana birds. Our first walking boss bird, I named "Buford" for the late, great, Buford T. Justice. He was a green and gold bird, by far the prettiest bird in the flock. We lost Buford to a hawk earlier this spring, leaving us "Big Bob".

Our first batch of birds were comprised of four Colombians, two Comets, and two Americana birds.

We would average four of five eggs a day, but as word spread among friends and family, five eggs a day was not going do. This spring we planned on buying another batch from Tractor Supply, but as it turned out we waited too long and the birds were sold out when we got our ducks in a row to add to our bird family.
Cupcake, being the research expert in the family researched incubators, and we ended up buying an incubator and an automatic egg turner. We selected eggs from the Comet and Americana birds. The Comets are one egg a day layers, without fail. The Americana eggs are green and blue, and they are just pretty. We attempted 18 eggs, half actually hatched. We now added seven Comets and two Americana birds. Best we can tell, eight are pullets and one rooster.

We hope to have the new birds laying eggs for us by mid September. There is absolutely no comparison between store bought eggs and fresh eggs. We allow our birds to "free range" so we open up the coop in the morning and off they go in search of bugs and worms and whatnot. We feed them a morning treat of scratch grain, and I will throw whole corn somewhere in the yard every other day or so, just to keep them on the search. An unexpected perk, we dont have spiders, ants or even earwigs anywhere around the house now.

Fresh eggs do not need to be refrigerated, and will keep at normal room temperature for 90 days, so says the internet. Not that we would know, eggs this good don't lay around long. Besides keeping at room temp, the other noticeable difference is the yolk. Because the birds eat wild, the yolks have an orange tint about them. This turns the UN-informed folks off for some reason.

Every work day (except chip beef gravy Monday) I send Cupcake off to work with a fresh fried egg sandwich. I am convinced that mayonnaise was invented by some sadistic Catholic Priest in the Spanish Inquisition to torture prisoners, but Cupcake likes it on her sandwich, so that's how I make it.

We know not everyone has room for chickens, but we thought we would share our little hobby, and maybe brag on the eggs a little?
K&K