First Egg

Well those chickens are starting to earn their keep as we got our first egg this past weekend!  Although that's not a fair statement really, they've already been earning their keep with all their bug eating!  They are like vacuums all day long! The bug population on our property is way down compared to last year!  Last year you would walk across the lawn and every step you'd take it seemed like 20 crickets and grasshoppers would pop up, scorpion sightings are down as well.  Anyways, the spider population is a lot less too.  Last year we had big spider webs on every window of our house and every morning when I would walk outside I would always get some thick sticky spider web on me, even though we kept cleaning and yes, killing spiders.  So far there has only been one big spider on a window which was super gross but I got that taken care of with a vacuum.  Anyways, now our biggest chicken, a barred rock has started laying eggs! 

B is watching her work on laying her egg

She took a little break to come say hello

It was on saturday and we were outside and letting the girls free range and heard loud weird chicken sounds coming from the coop, my husband looked at me like what the?  Then I remembered when I took the kids to Farmer Sue's on a field trip and we watched a chicken lay and egg and all the noise she made and told the kids we better go check...sure enough she was in the coop pacing around, squatting and making loud noise then pacing around again....the kids were fascinated!  After a while we decided to give her some privacy so we followed the other chickens down our path in the woods my hubby made and started making some art with nature while we waited.  First the kids made a nature lady and then B and I made a "long neck" dinosaur.

After a while we checked back on the chicken and the other chickens had all come back and were on the ramp to the coop very curious as to what the heck was going on in there with all that racket.  They were standing on the tippy toes with necks stretched out towards the door, creeping closer but very hesitant.  Finally she laid her egg, ate a bunch of feed and then went about the rest of her day as normal.  J was so excited she called her uncle right away who also has chickens close in age to ours and then called her papa and told him the exciting news as well as informing him "...the egg was warm and smelled like a chicken butt!" lol it didn't really stink, just had a bit of a farmy smell but I wouldn't say it smelled like a chicken butt FYI.

I went to peek in the window on the hen and my hubby casually says "watch out for that spider right by your head" I didn't think much, then saw THIS THING!!! Can you say ARACHNOPHOBIA!  And look at that weird zipper like thing it made!  Anyways, last year we had spiders like this on all our bushes...havent seen any since the hens are out eating all the time.  This is the first one and it's way away from the house. But still....EEEEEEWWWWWW!

So we haven't tried them yet, they are kinda small at this point so we were going to wait to get a couple of them and then give them a try :)

New Additions! Baby Chicks!

Baby Chicks! 

We took the plunge!  Ever since we moved into this house about 7 months ago, we thought it would be great to have chickens, we loved the idea before but our old house was in a golf course community...I'm pretty sure backyard chickens weren't allowed!  Our neighbors here have an awesome chicken coop and we sometimes get to have some of their delicious eggs, but we wanted to raise our own chickens...so on Monday this past week we stopped in the local feed store and picked out 3 brand new baby chicks.  They are just too stinkin cute!

I recently took the kids on a field trip through our homeschool group to Farmer Sue's Art Barn which was just awesome and she is fabulous!  After the trip I was emailing with her about chickens and through talking to her and through researching the website My Pet Chicken I knew I really wanted some Barred Rock and Rhode Island Red chickens.  When we stopped by the feed store just to "look" they actually had the Barred Rock chicks as well as Ameraucana which lay blue eggs!  I ran into another homeschool mom there with her boys and they were raving about the blue eggs and how they were the best tasting eggs they've ever had so I decided to try one of those.  Here is a picture of our future blue egg layer! (I HOPE! They are supposed to be sexed but there is a small chance some might turn out to be roosters).  

I REALLY love the Barred Rock Cochin (or as Farmer Sue calls them...Pajama Pants!) But I think we would have to special order...this is a picture of J holding one of Farmer Sue's Barred Rock Cochin - Pajama Pants Chickens in her barnyard...they are beautiful!  I got 2 Barred Rock and they will look sort of like the one in the picture below minus "pajama pants".

I read a lot about the Barred Rock and Rhode Island Reds both being smart, ferocious hunters, and having good personalities which make them fun pets.  Both are known to be pretty hardy and good egg layers, producing large brown eggs.  We get plenty of crickets and other bugs in our yard so I think we will all be happy when these girls are out there feasting on all the bugs!  I'm also hoping they might put a dent in the scorpion population around here!

I love the Barred Rock chicks... they remind me of baby penguins...little dark balls of fluff...So far it's been easy, we have them in a large box lined with paper that we change daily, we gently handle them quite a bit so they get used to being held.  I've been adding a splash of Apple Cider Vinegar to their fresh water each day to help with the PH as well as help with their digestive health...and a little garlic powder to their feed as well, which I learned about doing from Fresh Eggs Daily's post about The Holistic Trinity for chickens.  Now I am having fun adding to my Backyard Chickens pinboard, learning all I can about the best tips for building our coop and keeping the chickens and coop as clean and healthy as possible!  And of course enjoying watching these cutie puff balls chip and grow and enjoying watching my kids enjoy them!

 We have a thermometer in the box with them and adjusting their temp as needed...they currently seem happiest between 82-84 degrees F.  The Rhode Island Reds come in April 8 so we will get some of those then and will have to keep them separate for a while so the older ones don't pick on the younger ones...hence the term "pecking order".