New Hampshire, White Leghorn, and Black Australorp hens lounging around together, May 31, 2009.

The chickens are growing up beautifully.  They are all in an “adolescent” stage, where they don’t quite have their full growth yet, and are not yet laying eggs.  They are, however, mature enough that they look like gorgeous, slightly smaller versions of their adult selves, and they are big enough that we have been able to resolve the identity of the “mystery” chickens. We can now tell the New Hampshire apart from the Cinnamon Queen, and our straight-run Buff-Laced Polish chicken has turned out to be a rooster.

All 8 chickens, labeled for convenience. June 11, 2009

For awhile there, after the rooster started awkwardly crowing but before he developed the distinctive five syllable “cock-a-doodle-do” call, I thought he might simply be a dominant hen.  Dominant hens do crow, and I was really hoping for another egg producer (contrary to my earlier expressed wish for a rooster).  But he has grown into producing a very distinctive rooster call, and I no longer consider him to be a dominant hen.  Well, as long as his crowing doesn’t bother the neighbors, I’d like to keep him around.  He’s already pretty, and will likely be even more so when he is fully grown.

Aaron is very worried that the rooster’s crowing will bother the neighbors, even though they haven’t complained and I hardly notice it myself (although it can get pretty loud).  Aaron’s solution has been to box up the rooster at night, when all the chickens have gone in the coop, and the rooster doesn’t get let out until 9:00 AM.  I have urged Aaron as well to actually talk to our neighbors and ask them if they are bothered by the rooster, instead of just worrying about it, but I don’t know if that will ever happen.

We are also finally able to tell the New Hampshire from the Cinnamon Queen.  They are the same red color (they share some ancestry, as the Cinnamon Queen is a hybrid – Silver Laced Wyandotte Hens with a Rhode Island Red Rooster – or so the internet tells me!), but the New Hamp has dark tail feathers, and the Cinnamon Queen has white or light-colored tail feathers.  I was able to see the color difference upon close examination of the chicks’ tails probably at least six weeks ago, but since this is my first time raising chickens, I didn’t want to say for certain until they looked more like their adult selves.  The Cinnamon Queen also matured a bit faster than the New Hamp, but the New Hamp has since caught up, so there really wasn’t much difference there.  The next real test will be – who lays eggs first?  One of the desirable traits of the hybrid Cinnamon Queen is early egg production.

Cinnamon Queen, April 28, 2009 (a little over a month old)

New Hampshire, April 28, 2009. Note that she still has chick fuzz on her neck (compared to the Cinnamon Queen). She's also a bit smaller.

Aaron is in the process of building a very nice coop for them.  This is a coop designed to hold eight chickens, with 32 square feet of floor space (four sq.ft. per chicken – recommended minimum for free-range chickens).  I mention this because in our research on coop designs, we found lots of designs for 2-4 chickens, but very little that were larger – and also relatively plain.  It seems there is a big leap up from “small and simple” to “large and elaborate” with very little in between!  So ours is an in-between coop  – large and fairly simple.  I’ll be painting it once it’s done – probably a nice yellow color, along with some sort of contrasting trim.  We also want to put it on wheels to move it around easily.

Most people who have backyard chickens, it seems, only get a few, instead of eight like we did.  We got eight because we wanted around 5-6, and it was prudent to get a few extra in case any of them died – and pretty cheap, too – most of the initial expense is in stuff for the chickens.  Well, none of them died!  We have eight very healthy chickens!

The "exit" side of the coop. The right side of the roof tin (in this view) still needs to be trimmed.

The "access" side of the coop, with a door big enough for humans to get in. This side of the coop is a little over 4 feet high.

Their primary feed is Nutrena NatureWise Meatbird feed, which we get from our local Farm and Home Supply store.  We’ve been feeding them that since shortly after we got them.  We could have started them on it, but we didn’t find that out until later, so we started them on medicated chick feed.  We’ll keep them on the meatbird feed until they start laying, which is when we’ll switch them to a layer feed.  I’d love to be able to mix their feed ourselves from locally available ingredients, but that is A LOT of work and cost-prohibitive at this time.

They also eat plenty of grass and whatever bugs they can scrounge out of our lawn.  I like to think they find quite a few – the lawn hasn’t been chemically treated for at least three years, and almost every time I dug into it this spring to give them some dirt clumps to feed on (when they were still kept inside) I found worms.  About once a week or so we give them wheat sprouts that we’ve sprouted ourselves, plus occasionally some sour raw milk – they love both treats!

I’ll post more later on the chicken coop, once Aaron’s got more work done on it – and more on the chickens, once they start laying.

One big happy flock of "teenaged" chickens. June 3, 2009

There are two schools of thought about raising chicks (that I know of).  The “conventional” method is to keep them in a sterilized brooder under precise conditions – lots of warmth and light, being fed manufactured chick feed with antibiotics to stave off common infections (common in massive chicken operations), fresh clean shavings changed very frequently to further prevent disease.

Then there is the traditional method (or wild method, I guess you could call it) which acknowledges that chicks being raised by the real experts (mama hens) run around on dirt and grass and eat all kinds of green things and bugs, with constant exposure to the elements, and ordinary day and light cycles.  No sterilized brooders, no powdered foods, no 250 watt bulbs, and certainly no antibiotics!

We went the conventional way at first, simply because those were the resources we had available to us.  But as I did a lot of reading at a great website, The Modern Homestead, about raising and keeping chickens, I decided that maybe our chicks would benefit from a little more tradition than convention.

So, yesterday afternoon, I dug up a clump of dirt from the backyard, with grass still attached on top and even a doomed worm poking its head out from the side, and put it in with the chicks.  It took awhile for the chicks to get used to it, but by the next morning, they had mostly devoured it (no sign of the worm).  I put another clump of dirt and grass in this afternoon, along with some sticks and leaves to make their box a little more interesting.  There was no hesitating today – they started in on the dirt like it was gourmet chick food!  Below is a picture of them pecking away at the dirt (click on the picture to see a larger version):

Chicks with their new "toys" including a fresh clump of grass and dirt, which they are eating enthusiastically.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that just plopping a clump of dirt in their box and letting them eat it is the right thing to do – but it seems right!   I’m glad they like the dirt, and that I have the chance to introduce them to elements of their future home – the backyard.  I’m glad I never used chemicals on my yard in the three years I’ve lived here.  There are a wide variety of plants in my lawn (most of which are considered edible weeds) and presumably plenty of bugs and microbiotic life, all of which will benefit the chicks, as well as any wild birds that care to stop by.

I hope the chicks will eventually reward me with lots of tasty and nutritious eggs.  But it is pleasant even now to sit by their box, watch them scratch and peck and doze, and hear their contented cheeping.  There is something about taking good care of small vulnerable creatures and having them benefit from my attention that is deeply satisfying.

The cute little fuzzballs are in a comfy box right now out in the garage with a 250 watt lamp keeping them warm (keeping them in the house with a cat and a dog was just not realistic!).  We’ll be raising them to live in the backyard, and they’ll eventually start laying eggs.  I wanted all different kinds, so we got 8 different breeds.  Seven are pullets (hens), and one is a mystery chicken – we won’t know if it is a male or female until it gets older.  I thought about getting a rooster just because they are more colorful than the hens, so I might be happy no matter what gender it is.  Hopefully if it is a rooster it will be a nice quiet gentle one so we won’t have any problems with the neighbors (whose barking dogs would probably be considered more disruptive than a rooster anyway).

In case you’re interested, the breeds we got were:  Ameraucana (Easter Egg chicken), Barred Rock, Black Australorp, Buff Laced Polish, Buff Orpington, Cinnamon Queen, New Hampshire Red, and White Leghorn.  Farm and Home orders their chicks through Cackle Hatchery, so if you’d like to read more about the breeds, you can visit their website.

And here are pictures of our chicks!  I’m amazed at how much they’ve grown in just a few days, although you really can’t tell in the pictures.  None of them (I think) were day old chicks.  I believe they all had been at Farm and Home for at least a few days, and some for a few weeks, which accounts for their various sizes.  Click on the pictures to see a bigger version, which also makes it easier to read the text identifying the breeds.

The 8 chicks, in their box on their first day home (March 27)

The chicks on March 30.

(I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist using the title “Hot chicks” for this post.  I often shock people when I refer to women as “chicks” so I wanted to use the word, for once, when I was actually referring to chickens!)

The chickens are fed a standard ration (Kent Home Fresh 27 Poultry) plus wheat that was grown on the farm, plus whatever they eat when they are outside.

Some chickens wandering around outside the hen house, which is on the left.

You can see two white specks in this picture - two chickens wandering very far afield! They are several hundred feet from the hen house.

Real eggs come in all sizes and colors!

Eggs in the skillet. Look at how upright those yolks are - very firm, and good dark color too (especially the ones in front and on the right).

Another shot of those eggs, which shows the color a bit better.

Because I’ve mentioned the farm’s gorgeous Jersey cows a few times, I thought I’d provide a few pictures as proof, taken in August 2008.

Some cows checking out my hubby and his truck.

Well, hello.

What a gorgeous cow!

The purpose of the following picture is solely to induce spring fever.  I really don’t remember the world ever being this green!!!

A view of the farm, looking north.