Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Monday is Chicken Day

Unfortunately, I don't have any chicken photos on this machine. I still haven't made the Great Migration from my old iMac; I'll see if I can do such by next week.

We brought the first batch of chicks home from Callahan's General Store in April of 2004. I chose Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds after doing a minimal amount of research from the McMurray Hatchery site. Both breeds fit our needs criteria (provide meat and eggs), so I brought home a boxful of chicks and a bag of feed and we housed them in a spare camping bin with a heat lamp.

When we though they were big enough, and the weather was plenty warm, we brought them out to the coop (built and designed--poorly--by the former owner). I did my best to continue with the holding and hand-feeding, but they eventually got big enough that their pecking hurt too much to be worth the effort. Being able to pick these up now makes for nice farm theatre.

The following October, our neighbors decided to move back into Austin, and they gave us their Arucanas; they left the Australorpes for the FIL to tend. So, our flock numbered an even dozen. Fast forward a bit to August of 2005. I was very pregnant with my son, and I was having a really hard time getting out to feed the chickens and gather the eggs. While I was in the hospital, one of the Arucanas also became a mommy to several chicks, only two of which survived: Toni and Tone (Tony being my son).

I have several stories about the chickens that I'll post in the following weeks, but for now, it is getting late and I must bid y'all goodnight.

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