We Have Chicks!

It is always so fun to arrive at the farm store and hear the sounds of cheeping coming from the newly hatched chicks. My kids love this time of year when we get to go choose the chicks and bring them home to enjoy their cute fluffiness.

Enjoying a cute Polish chick

When we first moved into our home, we purchased some chicks that were all excellent layers. The White Leghorn, Gold Sexlink, Black Australorp, and Rhode Island Red. I discovered I'm not a huge fan of the Rhode Island Red breed even though they are excellent layers. I have found them to be somewhat aggressive and that is something I'd like to avoid with my young kiddos running around. We soon realized, that our "ingenious" idea to house our chickens in the barn with the rest of the animals turned out to be a major dusty disaster. Everything was quickly covered in an inch thick layer of chicken dust. We decided we needed to make some improvements and build an independent chicken coop before we could have chickens. In the fall, we ended up giving all our hens to some very excited neighbors in order to allow us to make these changes.

Arrive Spring 2018! We opted this time for Buff Orpington (my favorite), Black Australorp, Ameraucana (Easter egger), and just for fun, Polish (hairdo's from the 70's!).

Oh so fluffy!

The Polish already have a little poof on top of their heads! With the other breeds we chose, they came with a 90% guarantee of being pullets (hens) but the Polish were considered "straight run" which meant we had no idea if they were hens or roo's. After doing a little research, we found that the the little poof is generally more rounded on the hens and somewhat of a mohawk shape on the roo's. So far we have two that are round and one with a mohawk. We'll have to wait and see how accurate this method is, so stay tuned and we'll let you know how it progresses!