My Girls!!

This is a picture of one of my 18 happy hens! I don't know what it is about this picture that just makes me smile. Raising chickens has been quite the adventure for my family and I. It is something that I dreamed about for such a long time and was so excited when we were able to rent a home with property and lucked out with a land lord that really likes us and lets us have our animals. I started out visiting the feed store with my kids many times and just browsing the isle with all the poultry supplies. I also bought a book called, "Raising Chickens In Your Backyard" that was wonderful. It was very practical and geared towards those that are just starting out. We bought a little at a time in anticipation for delivery of our chicks. The first thing we purchased was a chick feeder that my 6yr old picked out. He left the store feeling as though he had quite a treasure. There is a smaller section to our little barn that we turned into quite a large chicken coop and only had one outside wall when we moved in. We were lucky enough to purchase some old barn boards from a man up the road. They call him "Barnboard Tom". We spent weekends off and on for a couple of months. I had gone on a trip to illinois to visit relatives and when I got home my son and husband surprised me with a finished chicken coop!! They were so proud of themselves. They used materials we had on hand such as old crates and wooden dresser drawers for nesting boxes and the roost was made from limbs they found on our property. They did a wonderful job. It felt as though we were preparing to deliver a child with all the book reading, planning and purchasing we had done. My husband was as excited as I was and picked up five free ckicks from a feed store in Oregon and surprised us with them. The kids were ecstatic! The picture of the chicks I posted were four of the first five we brought home. The white one was named Peeps by my 6year old. Peeps grew up to be a beautiful rooster and I will add a picture of him later.

Over the next few months, we added seven buff orpingtons including on rooster, six rhode island reds, and two sweet little khaki campbell ducks(that's another story!). Just a few weeks ago we purchased six full grown laying hens from a local farm that are a barn yard mixture. My favorite of that bunch is a barred rock hen that lets me pick her up and then sits there and chatters at me. They have all been such a joy and we are now getting about 5-7 eggs a day. The rhode island reds were the first of the ones we raised from chicks to lay. They were about 5mos. old when I found the first egg laying on the ground in the corner of the coop. I was so overjoyed it almost brought me to tears. My girls and I had worked so hard and the first egg was finally here!!