Chicken Farmin'

I mentioned a few posts back that I would talk more about our chickens and ducks at a later date.  And while I call it chicken farming, it's really more egg farming, as we don't actually plan to raise and breed chickens ourselves. ... primarily because I don't like roosters.  :)  

It all started in late April when I started thinking about how great it would be to have a few chickens and get fresh eggs every day.  The thought had barely even formed in my head when Gage said to me, "I think we should get chickens."  We didn't even give the idea time to marinate.  We went a bought chicks the very next day. 

Which was April 30th. 

Our anniversary.  

We bought each other chickens on our anniversary.  

We're weird people.

Anyway, we bought ten that day - four different kinds, just to experiment.  On his way home from school a few days later, Gage stopped by the co-op to see if they had any different kinds.  They did, and he bought four more chicks.  For some reason, the cashier offered to throw in 3 wood ducklings for free.  Not really sure what we were going to do with ducks, Gage took them anyway.  What harm could there be in having a few ducks around, right? 

While the baby chicks were cute and calm and would even let Bruce pat them and coo at them and squeal "chick!" a million times, those little ducks were just flat LOONEY.  Our first mistake when Gage brought them home, was to take one out of it's box inside our house.  They were so tiny and cute, we knew Bruce would just love them.  I have NEVER seen anything so small move so fast.  We chased that dumb duck all over our kitchen, through the dining room, through Gage's office and finally cornered it in the safe room.  We ignored the nagging voice in our minds saying that this animal was not normal.  We took the captive and the two other ducks and built a little home for them in a large barrel with a grate over the top (trust me ... they were TINY.  We could have easily fit 10 more in that barrel). 

A few days later, when checking on the birds, I found one of the baby ducks dead.  No reason.  Just died.  Maybe it had a heart attack.  Maybe it had a panic attack.  Who knows, but it was gone. 

When I lifted the grate to remove the dead bird, the other two tried to JUMP out, like creatures possesed.  The second one died a few days later.  Gage thought it would be okay to put the last surviving duck in with the chicks.  Its feet had barely landed in the cage before it shot through the bars and was gone.  Maybe it's still living in our shed.  Maybe it got eaten by a snake.  In any case, that little sucker is GONE.  Good riddance.

Back to the chicks ...

Gage has designed a chicken coop that can be moved every few days.  This way, the chickens can be kind of free range without getting eaten by coyotes, or bobcats, or farm cats.  So far, it seems to be working well.  Once they are bigger, the coop will be out in the pasture, but while they are small, we want them near the house.

Emily is determined to make pets of them. 

Which is fine, until they stop laying eggs.  Then we are going to have a problem.  :)

Bruce wanted to help.

Emily is such a good big sister!  Holding up a chick so Bruce can pat it.