Picture This > Chicken Farmers - The First Year! (25)
-
Building the chicken barn
With winter coming on, we needed a secure, warm place for the poultry to spend the nights. I came up with a simple design and Gwen added some complexity by asking for a gambrel roof!
-
Building the chicken barn
A barn needs to be painted red of course, and Gwen likes the white trim. We had help from some of our close friends and family getting this done.
-
Almost done with the roof
We decided to put shingles on the roof and that went well, just a bit tough getting the very top done.
-
Home sweet home...
... for our chickens and guineas at least.
-
Duck Box
The ducks have their own home which we can move around as needed.
-
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Our chickens and guineas made it through the winter months inside their barn at night, and we opened the door for them to free range as they wished - snow or shine. We did add a small fenced yard which we could open or close, but the guineas - and some chickens - had no problem getting over the top when they wanted to.
-
Spring is springing forth
Everyone was happy to see the green of spring!
-
Hens doing their thing
We ended up with 15 hens by the end of winter, and so have a dozen or more eggs to gather each day.
-
Our First dozen
Our first dozen eggs ended up being a baker's dozen!
-
King Henry
Henry was king rooster and took on all comers in his role as chief protector. Most of the baby chicks hatched out this spring were his. Sadly he lost his mojo while protecting the rest of the flock from two stray dogs. We were able to save him, but after several weeks of healing in isolation, Henry is no longer king.
-
Big Red
The new top cock-a-doodler is Big Red. He has a more even temperment than Henry, and is less aggresive. But he does keep all the other chickens in line - including his former boss.
-
Setting some eggs
Mid March we set 42 chicken eggs in our incubator.
-
First pip
Three weeks after setting the eggs we had our first pip. We candled the whole lot at two weeks, and found 7 unfertilized, undeveloped eggs.
-
First chick
Our first hatch went well, and we were able to watch many of the chicks actually be hatched on Gwen's birthday.
-
-
-
Second generation
We ended up with 31 baby chicks.
-
Chicken tractor
The chicks moved to the chicken tractor at 6 weeks.
-
Ducks in a row
In the mean time, our ducks have also grown up - at least five of them have...
-
Sir Francis & company
Our big daddt drake and two of our mama ducks
-
Duck, duck, duck, go...
...oh, sorry - no goose. Just 21 baby ducks hatched out from the 35 eggs we set.
-
More ducks!
We also bought another 30 ducks... 15 Rouens and 15 hatchery choice which ended up being 5 Fawn Runners, 9 Swedish (some black, some blue), and one yellow ducky we haven't figured out yet.
-
Guineas
Our guineas have also grown up, but sadly we have lost a number of them to predators.
-
Guinea Eggs
We found several guinea nests and traded out enough eggs to set a full incubator. We ended up with only 21 keets.
-
A peaceful morning
We love watching our poultry ranging across the lawn in the morning. Bugs... Breakfast of champions!
