Our babies are all grown up now! With the garden halted to an end where the blight came in and finished off our tomato's ( that's okay, we harvested TONS before the blight took hold!) it has gotten to where we now can let our chickens out to play!
Seems like just yesterday we got the little balls of fluff and now they are all big and grown up and really enjoying being let loose to free range and glean the garden left overs! I love it when the chickens can run around on their own, gleaning what they need for their own diet, getting lots of exercise and enjoying the sun and wind.
I do have more roosters than I would like and I am still trying to figure out if it is in me to butcher, but not ready to jump on that band wagon yet. Ovcr the years we have had chickens off and on, and I never could bring myself to kill them after raising them from chicks, but at some point I know I have to come with terms with what to do with the extra roos.
To refresh your memory we have
3 Araucaunas where now is evident we have one rooster and 2 hens
3 Silkies-- 2 are roosters for sure, I THINK the other one is a hen I HOPE HOPE HOPE but verdict is still out.
3 ISA Browns- 1 is a hen for sure but I am not sure on the other 2 as they have bigger combs and waddles but no crowing yet............should know in a couple of weeks as they should start laying eggs in October some time!
That is my daughter in the one photo with her White Silkie Rooster named Champion!
And then our dog Sophie who can not figure out why chickens do not herd like sheep although she tries to keep them together! LOL She really wants to be friends with them but she is scared of them and does not like getting pecked on the nose!
Okay now HURRY up eggs I am getting impatient!
I couldn't bring myself to eat one of our chickens if we kept them. I would probably keep them as pets. Not very frugal, I know. But that's why we don't have chickens just yet.
ReplyDeleteThe araucaunas, those are the ones with blue-green eggs, right? If I kept chickens, that's what I'd want.
We pretty much only want eggs BUT when you buy certain breeds that can not be easily sexed as chicks, the sexing is only 70% accurate so leaves a wide margin for error.
DeleteIt can be hard to GIVE roosters away and at same time can not have too many around or they start fighting. So then it becomes neccessarity for having a plan for too many rooster removal LOL.
Yes the araucaunas lay the blue/green eggs but the silkies are docile and cuddly so are great for kids who like to hold chickens. The ISA browns are heavy producers that lay even in the winter months without artificial light source which is why we chose a couple of them!
We really do love having chickens!