Chicks 2020!

Chicks 2020!

Just as a forewarning, we might have gone overboard on the chickens this year. In our defense, we have really high aspirations for our farm--which includes selling eggs, chicks, and all things chicken. We have plenty of space...we are going to convert one of the barn stalls into a coop. And with their free-range nature and our lack of current capabilities to keep out predators, deaths are going to happen. So why not start off with a big flock to buffer? Those were our thoughts, anyway. Those and that it's really hard to say no to a "new breed" when you go into tractor supply and see their cute little faces. It's an addiction, I tell you. Like collecting baseball cards--only you end up collecting as many different chicken breeds as you can. 

This year's chicken adventure actually began 6 days before we were due to get our chicks from mypetchicken.com in from the mail. Tractor supply got their first shipment of chicks in, so of course we had to go take a look. 

TSC had leghorns, a breed that we didn't have yet. Leghorns lay white eggs, which is really why we wanted to add them to the flock. The only white egg layer we have currently is our one Egyptian Fayoumi hen, and she lays tiny eggs. 

We ended up buying 6 leghorns and 2 Rhode Island Red (RIR) pullets. We bought RIRs online, but we opted for straight-run in hopes that we get a rooster to breed RIRs. However, straight-runs mean that we could get all males...so we added two females to the flock just for assurance. 

They stayed overnight at my parent's house in a temporary brooder until we took them out to the farm. This wasn't Rylee's first encounter with chicks, but definitely the first she remembers. She kept trying to pick up the chicks to pet them. 

Fast forward six days, and Ankaye brought our 17 new babies to the farm!

The RIR chicks (3 straight run) had really cool coloring! Red body with yellow wings. A note about RIR chicks, if they have a line on the time of their head of dark coloring--they're a male. Good thing that we got more RIR chicks from TSC because we've already had two of the three die :(

We ordered a Black Copper Maran (BCM) rooster since we already have BCM hens in our flock. Check out the pictures of the eggs below to see why we want them in our flock!

This little fellow is a Black Ameraucana rooster. When you order online, you have a 50% chance of getting a Black Ameraucana, 25% chance of getting a Blue Ameraucana, and 25% of getting a Splash Ameraucana (what we really wanted). Looks like we probably got a black one, though we could have gotten a blue one. We shall see!

Splash Ameraucana's are really pretty! They are white birds with splashes of grey and blue in their feathers, and they lay blue-green eggs. Here's some fun breeding facts for you: 

Black Ameraucanas x Splash Ameraucanas (we have one of those!) = 100% Blue Ameraucanas

Blue Ameraucanas x Splash Ameraucanas (we have one of those!) = 50% Blue and 50% Splash. 

Once we get Splash Ameraucana's, we can breed Splash to Splash (probably need to get some genetic diversity in there somehow...) to get 100% Splash. How exciting! 

Now, Easter Egger chickens are like Ameraucanas in that they lay a shade of blue to green eggs, but they are kind of an unofficial breed. Let's call them mutts of the chicken world that people actually desire. That's because you can make an Easter Egger (EE) by breeding a colored egg layer to basically any other chicken breed. We ordered two Blue Easter Egger chicks (female) to breed to Harper who is supposedly an Easter Egger rooster. We are still searching for blue eggs in our flock, so here's hoping these two ladies lay bluer eggs. Green is actually pretty common...

Here are the Egyptian Fayoumi chickens (three straight-runs). They are TINY, though not as tiny as bantam chicks. They end up being in between a Bantam adult chicken and a regular adult chicken size when they are full grown. However, they look like weird dinosaurs as they are super skinny and have black and white striped feathers. They are one of the least domesticated chicken breeds and thus super good at avoiding predators. They lay small white eggs. 

We added four Buff Orpington (4 straight-runs) to the flock because they lay very large brown eggs. 

Lastly, we purchased Golden-Laced Wyandotte chicks (three straight-runs). Broody is one of the very first chickens that we bought back in Athens, and she is still alive and kicking (and laying the occasional egg! She's four years old this year, and most chickens stop after three). 

The very next day, I called TSC in Danville, and guess what? They had chicken breeds (pullets) that we didn't have. We had to go. 

We purchased three Isa Brown and three Golden Comet hens. They look so similar that we couldn't tell them apart once we got them home. Apparently, they will even look similar when they are adults. They both start laying about 4-5 months old rather than the typical 6, and they can produce up to 350 eggs a year. Both are RIR crossed with a different breed. For example, RIR x Leghorns (supposedly) = Isa Browns (trade secret, so specifics aren't known). To get a Golden Comet, you cross a Red gene rooster (such as a RIR) with a silver coloring gene hen. 

And because I'm super excited about how the adult hens are going to look, we purchased 6 Russian Orloff pullets. 

The last leg of our chicken adventure is that Sam and I decided to try and hatch our own. This was all 

spurred on when our Production Blue hen died after laying her last egg. And boy was it gorgeous! 

We think she died because the roosters, whom we recently let join the flock full time, stressed her out. Figuring the egg was probably fertile, we decided to incubate it. We collected eggs for the rest of the week and ended up with 9 potentially fertile eggs. 

Today was day 5 of incubation, which meant the beginning of when you can candle the eggs to look for development. We are new to chicken egg candling, so all of our eggs might have died and we just can't tell (I keep fighting with the humidity in the incubator). We will candle again at day 10 and day 15 to check for progress before the day 18 lock-down. 

What we think a developing egg looks like. You can clearly make out a large blob that I think is the embryo (and other stuff...again, I'm new to hatching chickens). We are supposed to be able to make out a small mass in the middle with veins coming out (the embryo!), but it may be too early. 

What we think an unfertilized chicken egg looks like when you candle it--clear with no distinct blobs. The cool speckles are just different colorations in the egg shell. This was one of Broody's eggs....bummer. 

For anyone keeping count, that's 21 pullets that we purchased, 2 roosters that we purchased, 13 straight-run chicks that could be either male or female that we purchased, along with the 15 adult hens and 2 adult roosters we have living at my parent's house. Subtract the two RIR chicks that died, and that's a total of 52 chickens in the flock right now. Yes, that's a lot, but since we want to breed as many breeds as possible, we need lots of males. And each male needs 8-10 hens of his own to prevent fighting in the flock. So there's that. 52 chickens - 17 adults hens = 35 chicks currently living in the brooder. Our brooder is handling them perfectly! 

In other fun news, our hens back at my parent's house are starting to pick up in production. Look at this gorgeous mixture of eggs! The extremely dark eggs are laid by the Black Copper Marans. 

Speaking of babies (granted, a different species), Sam and I keep forgetting to post this picture on the blog. I'm pretty sure most of you know, but it still may be fun news for some! Baby Burns #2 will be joining the family in August 2020.

We think Rylee is going to be a great big-sister!

Pax Domini cum spirito tuo temper sit,

Torey, Sam & Rylee

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