Thursday, May 19, 2011

Backyard Chickens update + new Silkie Chicks

Our chickens are continuing to grow and thrive.  The ones we hatched last are doing nicely along with the other hens we had.  We now know that two (2) of them are roosters.  Their crows are weak and uneven, it is kinda pathetic but in a cute kind of way to listen to them.  My hubby said that one of them was trying to get it on with one of our older hens.

Hmm?  Wonder if he was successful?  If he was maybe we have fertile eggs again???  I saved 3 of the eggs yesterday to go with the next batch to incubate. More on that later.

We took my stepdaughter to get 2 silkie chicks last Saturday.  The guy we got them from had about 25-30 of them.  He had a nice coop and was very knowledgeable.  She picked out a black chick and a white chick.  The black one is very calm and the white one is hyper.  Here is a picture of her holding them.



My hubby, ever he awesome handyman that he is buit some new boxes for the chickens to lay eggs.  The chickens however are very unappreciative and have yet to use them.  They kicked out all of the straw.  We need to remove the old ones and make some modifications on the new ones.  Here's a couple of pics of the new boxes.





The best part is we can now collect the eggs from the outside....well if we want too....when they start using the boxes.  Tomato (the chicken shown is above) just hates my hubby.  She seems to hate all men actually, I don't know why.  She is also at the top of the pecking order and the is THE BOSS.  She always tries to attack my hubby when he gets eggs, so I usually get them.  She's fine around me. Here's a view out the outside of the boxes.  Just lift up the lid (secured with a lock so chickens can't escape) and collect the eggs.



The chickens have been enjoying the nice weather lately and so are we.  Here they are roaming around in their run. I'll have to get a better picture next time.  It doesn't look like it but there is a lot of room.  We have a big yard for them to roam around in too.  This was taken on one of the many rain days in between the nice weather.



 Check back soon.  We are going to incubate and hopefully hatch a lot of new little chicks.

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