Our Newest Additions

Several years ago I was looking for baby chicks on Craigslist. During my searching, I stumbled across a "new to me" breed of chickens called Icelandic.  After doing some research on this breed, I was completely intrigued. I reached out to the person on Craigslist selling the chicks, but they never responded.

I have looked into this breed a few times since then, but the price per chick and the minimum quantity prevent me from ordering any. But then this year, things changed. In one of my chicken groups on Facebook, a lady from central Wisconsin was advertising her Icelandic chicks for sale. I was so excited. But, with our schedules she was still to far away. My husband insisted we could find a way to make the journey because he knew how important they were to me. In a conversation with the lady to see about scheduling the trip, she asked where we were from. Turns out she has a friend that lives 20 miles from us and she also raises Icelandic Chicks! I was put in contact with the local lady, and the rest is history! 

We are now the proud owners of Icelandic chicks. So far it appears that we have all pullets, but we'll see!

 They are about 2 weeks old in this photo. Still living in the house.

After battling our excessively rainy spring, they finally got to start sampling grass and bugs this past week! 

If you would like to read about Icelandic Chickens, here are some interesting articles:

Mother Earth News.

The Modern Homestead

What's your favorite breed of chicken?

New Kids on the Block

A while back I introduced you to the new additions. Well, they are doing great! And getting so big!

They are so full of energy, it is really hard to get a picture or two of them if it's daylight out, but I did manage to capture a couple yesterday.

This is the Buff Laced Polish Hen. Isn't she stunning? 

And, if you noticed I specified that she is a hen, that's because the other Buff Laced Polish is a Rooster! 

He has so much personality, we just had to name him, so please meet Mr. Idol. 

We typically don't name most of the flock. We did that once and bad things happened, so we have stayed away from it. Until this year. Since we named Mr. Idol, we felt the Mrs needed a name, so I'm pleased to introduce Lita.

Joan didn't want to pose pretty, but she is the solid black one.

Then we have Tina on the right, and the one on the left has yet to be named. 

 If you've picked up on my theme of names, and have any suggestions, I'm listening!

And, just because she is a ham, and LOVES attention, here is one of the old girls!

Growing Up!

The little ones graduated to their new "mini" outdoor coop! Maybe because we have never had these deluxe accommodations before for the little ones, but I have never seen a chick sunbathe the way the older hens do. It was quite entertaining to watch. Of course, the photo doesn't quite capture how much they were enjoying the beautiful sunshine, but they were!

This Black Jersey Giant was really enjoying the rays since her feathers are coming in slower then all the other chicks!

Here is the Jersey Giant again, she is a week older with a few more feathers, but still just a lot of fuzz.

The Golden Laced Wyandottes starting to show their beautiful colors.

 The Buff Laced Polish are getting super fluffy heads and lots of feathers.

Here we have all 6 of the new chicks together enjoying some green grass.

In the midst of taking care of the chicks and chickens, I finally made a cookie recipe worth raving about and sharing. I hope to make it again this weekend and get some pictures taken so you can all share in some cookie bliss with me. It's so good. It's been worth the wait!

The Flock Grew

One sunny April day, after much discussion we decided that we would indeed get some new chicks this year! And, we were off to the store before we could change our minds!

We are only adding six, as that is all we have room for.  Buff Laced Polish, Golden Laced Wyandotte, Americana, and Black Jersey Giants are the beauties we selected, and they are all new breeds to our flock. 

We have them set up with their heat lamp, and they are happily staying in the basement until they get bigger. Then we will move them to phase 2 until they are ready to begin mingling with the big girls and boy. I am sooo excited to watch these little ones grow up. They should all be hens, except for two that we aren't sure. So, there is a little mystery left in the mix!

Having picked up the chicks the weekend after Easter, we were feeling all nice and springy. And then this happened. 

I know it will melt quickly, but this seems to have been such a long long winter already! 

I am anxious to get to the woods picking morels, and of course to get the garden going! 

Come on Mother Nature, lets get spring in full swing!!

Are you already planning or working on your gardens?

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Around the Farm

Is it really almost June? The days are passing by so quickly.  

We have been having so much rain that we are running behind on farming and gardening. We will get caught up soon though.

Corn is all in and planted. Soybeans, eh... still working on that one!

Facebook shared a memory with me the other day. May 26, 2016 we picked our first vegetable. Interesting.  

May 26, 2017, we PLANTED our first row of vegetables. Better later than never, right?

The morel season was not a stellar one for us this year. It was a record low number of morels picked between us and my parents. This guy was my big find, but I didn't take him home with me. He was so water logged when I found him, I am surprised he held together long enough for me to get a picture of him. (Yes, the mushroom is a he 😊)

Our beautiful little Black Copper Marans are growing up. We started suspecting one might be a rooster. Notice the bigger comb on the chicken on the right?  But, we've had that happen before and then we end up getting an egg!

But then something else happened. The sun came out, and we could see all the beautiful colored feathers that this boy has. If you know chickens, you know roosters are the more colorful and striking birds. And this boy looks to have some amazing color. I never know for sure until they crow, or lay an egg, but I am not making any bets on eggs coming out of this guy!

I wish the pictures were better of these two, but they are jumpy when I am around. And it's hard to get them to pose for me.

So, tell me, have you planted your garden yet?

New Addition?

What's new on the farm? 2 new chickens!  We (well mainly just me) are so excited about adding these two new chickens to our flock. They are Black Copper Marans. 

They will grow up to be a dark colored bird. Why am I so excited? Because they lay the most beautiful "chocolate" colored eggs. While I have never seen these eggs myself, I have seen lots of photo's of them, and I am sooo excited. We are hopeful that both of the chicks are hens.

If you want to see what color of eggs we are hoping to add to our collection, 

click over to this post from Fresh Eggs Daily.

In the mean time, the rest of the ladies are keeping busy. 

Enjoying the green grass and bugs that were out of their reach all winter long.

(And the kitchen scraps I just gave them!)

Won't the dark colored eggs look beautiful mixed in with these?

Oh No They Didn't.....

Remember these glorious plants I showed you last week? 

Well, last Thursday we transplanted them into the garden! Exciting, right?

Remember these beautiful free ranging chickens I shared a couple weeks ago?

Well, this is what those beautiful chickens did to our transplanted veggies, on Friday.

If you look close you can see the little bit they left behind.

So, until further notice these bad chickens will not be free ranging! 

 The free ranging party is over until we decide what to do since the 8 open acres of grass and bugs aren't sufficient. 

Until the next garden update....

Spring Fever

The weather has really been so nice. I can't get much done outside, but I can go for a walk.

I can check on my feather friends, and see what they are up to.

Lil' Miss laying an egg.

Lot of egg laying going on around here.

I had to take a walk to find everyone else. They had followed Truckin' Man further away from the buildings.

Lil' Miss Goldie always comes running when she see's us.

Lil' Man or Lil' Mister.

No matter what you call him, he is little and he is in charge.

 He watches over his flock dutifully.

He's never far away.

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Feeling like Spring

Temps are warming and snow is melting! That and the longer days are making for some happy chickens. 

And yes, we are finally getting eggs!

The ladies are enjoying the dirt floors in the pole shed. Makes for a relaxing dust bath.

Everyone seems happy, yet not quite trusting that spring is here.

Queen of the Farm was keeping an eye on the chickens while they were taking their dust bath. 

She had a hard time keeping her butt in place and not going to join in the fun.

If Truckin' Man doesn't need my help as much this week on the remodeling project, I will be back again this week with at least one, if not two new recipes for you!

Have a great week!

Lay Some Eggs Already!

When we started raising chickens, I bought our first chickens at a local farm store. They were so cute in the bins, that I just had to have them. Truckin' Man supported this decision. The chicks were a hybrid, and were fantastic chickens. They were excellent layers, great personalities, but one big clique.  When we tried introducing other breeds, or sexes, to the flock, the ladies weren't having any of that. A couple other small issues, made me want to try some "true" breeds.

I have come to learn that there are advantages to the hybrid chickens. They lay eggs in the winter.

Today's ladies, while pretty and all, don't lay much for eggs. We have 16 hens, and we are lucky if we get 2 eggs a day. Just enough to keep me from having to buy eggs. But, no eggs to share or sell. 

Just enough eggs to keep these chickens from ending up in the fryer. 

I know when the temperatures warm, and we finally get some days of sunshine, egg production will resume. Until then, we will appreciate what eggs these little beauties leave for us.

What about you? What do you think about the hybrids versus the true breeds?

 Want to see more of my chicken posts? Click Here.

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