There are a lot of chicken-y kinds of things going on around here right now. Since our chicken fiasco a month ago, we've been working on trying to increase our chicken numbers, hoping for some more hens. We would like to be in a position to provide a dozen eggs a week to around 10 customers by the summer of 2013. There are three different ways we're attempting to increase numbers right now.
First off, Orrin found a couple farms in the area that hatched some chicks recently, so he brought home five Rhode Island Red chicks, who were probably 1 to 2 weeks old when he got them. They are about three weeks old now. He also bought five Buff Orpington day-old chicks, they are now 2 weeks old. All ten chicks seem very energetic and healthy.
Second, we borrowed an incubator from some friends, and 23 days ago we put 11 eggs into it. Our lovely Rhode Island Red rooster recently died for some unknown reason, and so we collected eggs from the Rhode Island hens for the next few days, hoping that they had been fertilized before the rooster died. The general incubation period for chickens is 21 days, and just like clockwork, on the 21st day (2 days ago), several eggs pipped. Two chicks made their way out of their shells by that evening, three hatched yesterday, and one more had hatched by the time we woke up this morning. One that was born yesterday seemed to be weaker than the others, and didn't fluff out like the others did. That one died this morning. Out of 11 eggs, we found that two did not get fertilized, three did not hatch, and six were born. After that one died this morning, we have 5 vibrant little chicks. It's amazing how much smaller than the Buff's they look, who are only 1 ½ weeks older than them. The 3-week old Rhode Island Red's are so much bigger still that we moved the Red chicks to another brooder, as we didn't want any of the day-old's to get trampled.
The last thing we did to increase our chicken numbers was to put five eggs under a Buff Orpington who recently went broody. Oh, I guess I should mention that after the Rhode Island Red rooster died, we bought a Buff Orpington rooster, so we are now saving Buff Orpington eggs. You may recall that the last broody hen was a Buff Orpington, and you'd be correct. We have two Buff hens, and the current broody hen is not the hen that was broody last month. We have learned our lesson about trying to leave a hen with eggs in the coop with the rest of the chickens, and have put the eggs in a nest of hay up in the cow shed, where this particular hen likes to lay her eggs. We hope it'll be out of the way enough that she and the babies will be left alone when they hatch.
So we now have 15 baby chicks, with the potential for five more from the broody hen. If all those hatch and are healthy, hopefully at least half of all the chicks will be hens, giving us about 10 more laying hens in approximately six months.
