My Peeps

AKA - The Grammas

They're here! They've finally arrived. After several weeks of phone tag, a not-so-sure-at-first hubby, an excited, chicken researching little sister and a beautiful, much needed drive in the country on a Saturday morning... our chickens have arrived!

I'd like to introduce to you...

(from left to right)

Blanche, yet-to-be-named and Ercy

So far, Ercy is my favorite. She's a Barred Rock. The chicken web site I've been looking at described them as "plucky" - and she is. She seems to be the most friendly and inquisitive and gets the closest to me when I approach them. She seems cool and collected. I'm not surprised. She is, after all, named after my great grandmother. The other two are Wyandottes - gold and black laced. I was hoping for an Araucana or an Ameraucana but the lady I got them from didn't have any left. They lay blue or green eggs. Wouldn't that be fun? Maybe next year... Blanche is named after one of Justin's grandmas. Because, well.... Justin's grandma kinda looks like a chicken. You know - skinny legs, round body. But don't tell her I said that. I'm letting my little sister name the other one - since she was the most excited of anyone that we were getting them. She's even more thrilled that I'm letting her name one.

Let's see.. what would you like to know? I'm still learning. They should start laying eggs soon. They've already laid eggs but the lady said they'll probably be a bit shocked by the move and it might take a while for them to start laying again. But soon. And not months like it would if we got chicks. From the reading I've done they're supposed to be fairly good layers - hopefully 4 or 5 a week each. Par for Justin, he got to work on their coop right when we got home and got a good start on it. He's going to finish it up tomorrow. He's never built a coop before but I think it looks pretty good so far. Have I mentioned before how much my husband rocks? He always jumps right in to my crazy ideas and rocks 'em out.

I went to check on them in their coop last night and they looked happy as ever.
Here they are sitting on their perch.

Justin's going to put siding up to fully enclose them. The other side of the coop will have a hinged door that opens up right to the laying boxes. He's also going to enclose the bottom with chicken wire and will add a little extra section on the bottom to one side. Then he's going to put a ladder up for them so they can go in and out of their night house. In the end, the whole thing will be sort of "L" shaped. We've also decided to clip their wings - the lady at the feed store told me how to do it. That way we can let them out in our yard to roam around, scratch and fertilize our yard and garden and eat up some bugs.

I was also really excited to find some good feed. I went to the feed store and was a little boggled over what to get. I called my friend Karen to see what she feeds her chickens. Karen is one of the smartest people I know and does her research well. She's found an organic non-soy grain that they have delivered to their house (they have a ton of chickens) and offered to sell us a bag. She says anything that says "plant protein" is soy and that's all they would have at the local feed stores. I was glad to get the information. Karen saves the day again.

So there you have it. Another addition to the very humble beginnings of my dream... Firehouse Farm. We'll get there someday. It's a good start I think.