Last April Jake and I stopped at IFA and bought eight baby chicks. Seven hens and one Rooster. The grand kids love them at once since we raised them downstairs for the first month. They got to hold them while watching TV. They grew and started laying eggs the first of September last year. Two of the hens are Ameraucana's and lay beautiful green eggs. Just on the outside. The yoke is a dark yellow orange in color.
Five of the hens are Rhode Island Reds. These lay brown eggs. Out of the seven hens we get between five and seven eggs a day. Even durring the cold winter days they were steady layers. They were pampered by having a heat lamp on the coldest days and heated water. These chickens definitely do not pay for themselves. We do keep all our families in eggs. The grand children like them and that makes it all worth while. Besides that they are part of our food storage in a way. Five eggs a day would keep us alive for awhile.
Today I gathered seven eggs, one from each hen. Notice the one on the lower right. This one hen egg always has a ring around the middle of her egg. Like she takes two halves and put them togather
This is our Rooster. He's an Ameraucana same as the other two. I'm hoping that a couple of hens will be setting hens. I would like to raise several dozen chicks this summer and in the fall put them in the freezer.
During the winter they were kept in the chicken yard but now the gate is open and they have the full run of the yard and pasture and the next door pasture. When they are locked in the yard the feed bin goes down fast but being out where they get bugs, worms, grass, seeds and whatever the feed lasts a long time. Last week Jack and Afton caught and held them and let them eat grain out of their hands. I think Jake likes them the most. He wants to go our a buy a couple dozen right now. I think we'll wait and let the hens raise the chicks and not have to worry about heat lamps and boxes and all that other stuff.
