The chickens moved outside!

It's taken me forever to get this blogged about. Good grief, life's busy right now!

(Pearl perched on a kitchen chair)

One day about a month or so ago (about the time the picture above was taken), I went into the chickens' room (my poor office) to find them roaming freely. For fear that my office and house would be permanently ruined, I called Mark and told him "they're going outside tonight whether you're ready or not!" God bless him, he got them into their coop that night, and they've lived happily ever since. They always get excited when we dump fruit and vegetable scraps and fresh grass into their chicken run for them. That, and they get excited when they see Mark and make a distinct clucking sound (a hen call??).

(Mark working inside the chicken coop)

The coop is pretty awesome if I can say so myself. We bought a homemade dog house for $30 and made some cheap renovations including a perch, linoleum flooring and insulation (leftover from a previous project). The nesting box hasn't been purchased or installed yet. The fencing for their run was a little costly, but we have to protect those little chickies from getting eaten by dogs, possums, raccoons and it seems everything else that wanders outside. I'll be sure to get some pictures and post them asap!

Sarah

Chickens!

We got chicks a few weeks ago. They’re adorable and fluffy, and soon these hens will lay delicious eggs for us! We’re spending around $3.50 for 12 eggs right now, so the idea of (almost) free eggs is very appealing.

However, we didn’t take the decision to buy chickens lightly. Chickens live for years and there is a (small) cost to maintain them, so we did a lot of research beforehand to determine whether it was wise for us to purchase them. Once we decided to, I looked at the Breed Selection Tool at MyPetChicken.com and picked Rhode Island Reds. We discovered that this breed lays about 5 extra-large eggs per week and are hardy in winter (extremely important in Nebraska). I was pleased to see that this breed handles confinement well, isn’t normally broody, and is generally “easygoing”. From what I’ve seen so far, they are calm (although sometimes nervous), sweet little creatures. The one downside to this breed is that the adults grow to be fairly heavy, at 7-8 pounds.

We went to a local farm supply store and found Mini and Pearl. Mini was about 1 week old and Pearl was over 2 weeks old. We also bought a heat lamp, a bulb, a waterer, and a food dish.


“The girls,” as we like to call them, are growing quickly. One day, I walked into their room and found that Pearl had grown dramatically in just hours. Of the two, she is by far the largest and has remained that way since we got her.

Today, we took them outside for the first time. We made sure that we stayed with them to protect them from predators. It was a joy to watch them “fly” and take in their surroundings. They seemed to enjoy the feel of the grass and the sun on their little bodies (I’m sure they’re sick of that heat lamp by now).

Mark is working to get the coop done ASAP so that they can move outdoors (with a heat lamp for evenings, of course). I’ll post pics of the coop as soon as it’s done!

Until later,
Sarah