Chickens... cute little ones

Yelling, while waving arms around above head:

The chickens are coming, the chickens are coming...on or about March 24, 2013.

There will be 44 of them.

14 Barred Rock girl type chicks,
8 Black Giant girl type chicks,
10 Blue Cochin Bantam straight run chicks and
10 Araucana Bantam straight run chicks.

Yes, I know that that doesn't add up to 44. We will also receive one rare exotic chick of indeterminate sex and breed and I expect that there will be an additional chick to insure against any losses during transport, at least that is what happened the last time we ordered from McMurray.

So we will most likely wind up with about 30 or so girls if the 50/50 split works out on the bantams. Thinking of keeping one or two of the roosters, just to have that self-perpetuating flock of teensy-tiny chickadoodles. And to see if bant roos are man enough to try and take on a black giant girl. If they do I promise to try and film it. <grin> And because Bantam Roosters seem to be somewhat quieter in their crowing...


Bantam Roo crowing

I can't wait.

Let's see if we can sell enough eggs off this lineup to make them self-financing AND still give us enough eggs to eat. That is the goal for this venture. That, and to have some help with pest control in the garden.

Now all that is left to do is to strip off last years coop skin, re-arrange things so it is a walk in coop, add on nesting boxes, re-skin it with stronger siding, re-do the roof on it, re-position it in the garden, make it dog proof (very important, and I'll post about the Indianapolis chicken massacre of 11/03/2012 and the lessons learned from it at some other point) and then re-do the fencing for the garden before the hoop house goes in and the Asparagus bed gets moved this spring.

OK, before this morphs into a garden plan post (later, I promise), I bid you toodles and Happy Holiday of your choice.