As we have been planning out the growth of our homestead, our farm animals are a fun part of the plan. We decided that growing our brood of chickens would be a good thing for our farm. Last year we purchased a dozen chicken chicks to provide our family with eggs. We lost one of those and the amazing eleven have provided us from 7 to 11 eggs daily since October.
It’s always exciting to have new babies. Here are our latest additions – a variety of chicken chicks at two days old. We are growing our brood of chickens.Blessing our friends and neighbors with eggs was fun for awhile, but we eventually decided to sell the extra for $5 per dozen. We feed them organically and they get plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.
At two weeks old, they are still baby cute.
Selling the eggs doesn’t make us rich, but there is a certain sense of – “hey, we have a farm and can sell things that we are producing on it” feeling of awesomeness that we get when we exchange that carton of eggs with a buyer
Our Rhode Island Red and Ameraucana chickens have been great egg producers. They are similar in appearance, as well as size and seem to get along well with each other. We have studied chickens this past year and decided that we wanted to add a variety of others to our brood of chickens. We want to make sure we had good layers, but also desire to add some ornamental varieties. In other words, we want good producers that are pretty, too. We chose Barred Rock, Silver Leghorn, Rhode Island White and Sussex. My husband David picked out 14 two day old chicks from our local Tractor Supply Company and brought them home. They are all pullets, which is another word for females. Four weeks later, they are still in a large brooder until they are big enough to release with the full grown chickens. We did lose one and we have no idea why, but have come to understand that loss is a part of this farm life. As sad as it is to lose an animal, we respect and appreciate the role of the animals that we have. We do not take them for granted.
These girls are now four weeks old. We call this the dinosaur stage. 😉
Just for fun, we took two of our four week old chicks and put them in with our four day old chicks that we hatched. WOW, what a difference three weeks make in development.
As these chicks grow, it will be interesting to see what color their eggs will end up being. Currently, every day is like Easter as we gather up the brown, peach, blue and green eggs. It’s been awhile since we have bought any eggs and I cannot remember the last white egg we had. Just maybe, one of these new varieties in our growing brood of chickens will lay us a good ole’ white egg. Regardless of color, there is a sense of accomplishment when gathering the eggs. It is the reason that we raise chickens. We look forward to receiving more eggs from our bigger brood. They should begin laying when they are five months old.
Farm Fresh Eggs Sold Here!