Chickens!

It's that time of year when my thoughts to turn to CHICKENS!  Next month I will be placing my chicken order to Murray McMurray Hatchery.  This is who we ordered from last year, and I was very happy with them.  My current layers are coming up on a year old.  They should lay decently through the summer, but by next year they won't be giving much, so I will probably be butchering them in fall.  No sense wasting money feeding them through winter!  Except, of course, for Bessie, the little Buff Orpington, who's become a pet.  Right now I'm planning on trying out New Hampshire Reds.  I think they're very pretty, and they're supposed to be big, hearty birds and good layers.

I was also able to find a farm that processes chickens an hour away from my house, so I won't have to deal with the mess.  Although it's certainly rewarding to do it ourselves, we just aren't set up to do more than a few comfortably!  So I will also be ordering around 25 meat birds, to raise and then send off for butchering.

And since our sweet Polish roo died, I think I will let my oldest get a new one (Golden Polish this time, they're so pretty!)

It's amazing how quickly September is going!  It seems like it just started, and it's already the 19th!

I got the Mary Undoer of Knots novena I spoke about in my last post in the mail.  I'm hoping to start it tonight.  I know I've got plenty of knots in my life that need addressed.  Speaking of which, we're STILL waiting on dh's student loan money to come through (money that I really need to pay bills and finish baby shopping up) so prayers for speed in that are appreciated.

I'm 37 weeks and 1 day, so home stretch!  I keep hoping maybe this little boy will be nice and come a little early, unlike his sisters that were all a week or more "late."  I am tired and huge and uncomfortable and just generally done being pregnant, but mostly I'm still very paranoid that something is going to go wrong.  I just want him safe in my arms so I can relax.  Of course, I think that now, but I'm sure after he's born I'll just transpose that worry to SIDS and things like that.  One of the hardest things about multiple miscarriage for me has been the loss of innocence.  I never worried incessantly like this with my pre-miscarriage pregnancies.  I need to work on giving that up to God and surrendering myself to His will.

I'm also VERY ready for consistent fall weather.  This is probably due in part to the fact that I'm a nasty, sweaty mess, and yesterday it was 84F out which made me want to cry.  I don't remember sweating this much with my other pregnancies!  Even with the a/c blaring and freezing the rest of the family out I'm still all sweaty and gross.  BLAH!  The end of pregnancy is definitely not fun.  I spent a couple hours in labor and delivery last Sunday because I had so much, um, "wetness" that I was starting to worry I had a slow leak in my amniotic sac.  It wasn't, but geeze, isn't pregnancy so glamorous?  Still, praise God for it no matter how hard it can be!  Pregnancy is a miracle and a blessing no matter how miserable I might feel at the moment (actually, right now I feel okay, just tired!)

Ah, also, we have some surprise chicks!  We had a hen (well, technically still a pullet, but whatever!) go missing.  After a few weeks we still hadn't found her and just assumed she had been taken by a predator.  Well, yesterday afternoon my neighbor knocks on my door and informs me that I have chicks hatching in his yard!  She had made a nest in his overgrown wood pile and laid a clutch.  We left her until today, not all the eggs were hatched yet but I really wanted to get her somewhere safer (before we left for church there were two big dogs I didn't recognize roaming, there are also a few cats, including my own, around, so I was worried something might get her and the chicks).  So we stuck our two brooding cages together and moved mama and the chicks and eggs to the garage.  I think there were 13 eggs total, and so far 6 chicks.  When I checked earlier, one had just pecked a hole in his egg and you could see the little beak sticking out.  Very cute, unfortunately, I have absolutely NO MORE ROOM for chickens, I'm at my limit.  I really hope I can find someone to take them, or they're going to end up butchered for meat in a few months. 

More Chickens

Are you sick of hearing about my chickens yet? Well too bad, it's my blog! :P

I spent a few hours yesterday making an outside pen for the meat birds, they were getting cramped in the box in the garage, plus they stink to high heaven.



I don't think it's too bad, considering I have absolutely no construction know how! They seem happy enough. I need to put some dowel rods under the tarp to support it so it doesn't sag when it rains, and I need another tarp to cover the open part during the night to keep predators out.


I put tarp around this corner too, and laid down pine shavings so they have something besides cold ground to lay on at night, and the tarp gives some protection from the cold and elements.


Can you believe they're only 4 weeks old??


I'm very happy with the cornish roasters so far. They're calm and gentle, fast growing, hearty and healthy. I'm sure they're going to taste great, too! Another 4 weeks and the pullets will be ready to butcher, and in 8 weeks the cockrels will be ready.

It's amazing how fast the chickens are growing!



Here's a couple of my little guys from last week. Left is the cornish roaster (meat bird), right is a buff orpington (for eggs, they're good for meat too, though).


Here's the egg birds from today. They look "shaggy" because they're getting their feathers in.


Here are the meat birds. Can you believe how fast they've grown? Wow!! They're getting ugly now too, which is good, because then I won't feel so bad about eating them.

They're so fat. They expend so much energy growing so fast that they just lay around most of the time. They're very quiet, too.


Here's the meat birds new set up. It's a big box that oranges are shipped in, it works great!

This is the free rare exotic we got when we ordered. Totally random, looks like he's a white crested black Polish! Bailey is really excited, he's her favorite!

Black Giant

Buff Orpington

Cornish roaster (these are the guys that are getting eaten, dh nicknamed them "McNugget 1 through 15)

Chicks arrive!!

My chicks arrived rather unexpectedly this morning! I didn't think that I'd get them on a Sunday. Thankfully there was someone checking at the post office to call me to come get them!


Riley is enthralled! She loves the "chickies."

Chickens, Phase I

Ordered my chickens today, and got most of my supplies together!






Yes, those are rabbit cages. I'll be brooding the chicks in them out in my garage until it's warm enough outside to build the coop and put them out.


My lovely friend and neighbor Elizabeth, who's a chicken expert and my daughter's 4H leader.

Oh, and I got my hair done! Not that that has anything to do with chickens :)