I hear you out there... where is the blog??? Well, here it is again. I don't know about the rest of the you, but the older I get, the faster time goes by. It has been half a year since our last blog post - unbelievable!!!!
Anyway, I want to get back to blogging now and then. I can't cover six months of critters and farm life all at once so I will just begin with one part of it - the chickens.
I call my chickens, most of which have been born here, Ole Lake Reds but these days the flock is pretty multi colored. This post is about our latest batch of chicks.
We discovered a bunch of eggs in one of the cat beds in the shop. Usually in late September I would not want to encourage a broody hen but since we had such a poor experience with chicks last summer, we left the eggs alone and sure enough, one of the Buffys claimed them. (We have four Buff Orpington hens that were gifted to us by a neighbor, they are all named Buffy).
Twenty-one days later, almost all of the eggs hatched and we moved Buffy and her new family into the coop, containing the little ones in a brooder ring.
The chicks were all black except the one little buff colored cutie. Our late rooster, Don Julio was a Black Australorp.
Buffy took great care of them despite some pretty cold temperatures in October and November and as their feathers grew in, the color morph began.
By December, they had grown a lot
Now in January, they are still hanging out with MaMa Buffy which is unusual in my experience. I can now tell the little lads from the pullets too. She is a very protective mom so most of the pictures I get are of them running away from me. Apologies for the poor photos!
That is the chicken update. Next time (hopefully not too long from now) I will be back with a goat update. Until then, be well friends!