New Chicks!

 We are so excited about the new chicks we just brought home! There are several different varieties, most of which we have not had before. These five little gals (known as pullets) are Partridge Rocks. The breed is Plymouth Rock, the color pattern is Partridge. Plymouth Rocks do really well in this area.

Five Partridge Rocks (Andrew's hand for size comparison).

 Chicks are little, but we forget how tiny a new chick really is.  These hatched yesterday and were shipped immediately, so are a day old. Elizabeth is, of course, very interested in the new additions.

 We also bought 5 California Greys (pictured above). The lay a white egg. They are part of the parent stock of the commercial California White layers.They are prolific layers, but gentler than most high egg laying breeds. They should be non-broody (or won't quit laying to sit on their eggs). We hope they will produce lots of eggs! The females and the males have different color patterns. The hens are white with dark grey (almost black) barring, and the roosters are dark grey with white barring.

 This sleepy little guy is one of our new little roosters. Poor Charlie, our current rooster, got frost bite several times this winter, so we picked a breed with very little waddle or comb, the Buckeye. (The blue paint is to tell the males apart from the females.) We have 5 of these little guys and will keep the best one or two to be our new rooster(s). We hope crossing him with the California greys will produce a nice Sex-Linked, brown egg layer.

 We also bought two little pullets of the Buckeye. They are suppose to be winter hardy, great foragers, and good for meat or eggs. They are suppose to have a nice disposition, and friendly is our main requirement!

"Let me see!"

Buckeye chick

  This little gal with the puffy cheeks is an Ameraucana. If she keeps the puffy cheeks Hanna might call her "Chipmunk". The store special was "buy 12, get the 13th free". We already had 17 ordered, so of course we had to add 7 more to get our two free chicks. This was one of the freebies. She will lay blue/green eggs which are fun. (Our current Ameraucana, Clovis, is not much of a layer, nor is she friendly. We thought we would give the breed another try to see if we could get one that was a little more friendly.)

 This is our other free chick, a Golden Sex Link, that Hanna just fell in love with. If she produces as well as our other Sex-Links we will get plenty of eggs from her.

Golden Sex-Link

Golden Sex-Link, back of

This is our other Ameraucana. Notice how much lighter she is than the other one. Her cheeks aren't as puffed (known as muffed) either. She will probably have more white coloring, the other will probably be more brown. It will be fun to see.

 

Ameraucana

 This little (hopefully) gal was just so Yellow! She was hard to resist. She is a California White and should be a great layer. The hatchery only guarantees 80% accuracy, so of our 26 chicks, 2 or 3 of the pullets will actually be roosters. It is always interesting when one of the "hens" starts crowing.

 We bought some Andalusian (also known as Blue Andalusion) and some Cuckoo Marans. The Andalusions are very pretty blue/grey color. Typical for this coloring, some are blue, some black and some are "splash" or a mix.  Cuckoo is the coloring, a black and white similar to the Barred Rock, but not as uniform. Marans lay a dark, dark brown egg. We hope these do. Our Welsumers were suppose to lay a dark egg, but only one of the three does. (One sometimes lays an egg with darker speckles, sometimes plain brown, and the other lays a brown egg that looks just like the other brown eggs, a serious defect in this breed.)

 The Analusians and the Cuckoo Marans look very similar, and of course they ended up in the same box. (The California Greys are also similar, but you can already see the barring on their little wing feathers, and there are five of them.)  We have 2 of one variety and 3 of the other. Eventually we will figure out who is who.

 They are a fun mix of colors.

 Makala and Jake met us at the store to join in the excitement. Makala loved the California White, "Look it has a smiley face on its back!" If you look at it just right, the spots do look like a face.

 I am sure the addition of chicks will bring lots of excitement.  Due to the snow and the fact that we will have to build another chicken coop, the chicks will be living in the laundry room. I am sure Lizzy and I will spend hours watching them. She is so fascinated.

Last fall, we ended up with 19 full size hens, 2 banty hens, and the silver laced wyandotte "pullet" that started to crow, otherwise knows as Charlie the Rooster, for a total of 22 chickens. (We had 30 plus chicks when we started, but got rid of the roosters and those that didn't get along with the flock.) We were very pleased that some of our hens continued to lay all winter. Production dropped and some days we only have 9 or 10 eggs from the 21 hens. Some days we got 12-14 eggs. We rarely had to buy eggs which was a blessing .Elizabeth has had a lot of allergies and does much better on the home grown eggs than the store bought eggs. A few of them tried to brood (sit on the eggs) even though it was winter. They never would have gotten them to hatch in the cold. Silly Chickens. With the warmer weather, all the hens are laying eggs again, and we usually get 14-16 eggs a day. (Not all the them lay an egg a day. Some lay 3-5 eggs a week instead.)

We are excited about our new chicks and trying some different breeds, some of which will hopefully be better layers and less broody. It only takes a couple broody hens to raise chicks. The rest need to be producing eggs! This year we will keep both flocks, as the new ones won't start laying until almost fall. Next year we will cull (get rid of or eat) the hens from the first flock that slow down in productions. We are hoping that we will be able to raise our own chicks this year (from last years flock) or next year (from the new flock). It will be a fun adventure.