Pear of Hearts Farm: I NEED more Chickens.

All the eggs just before going into the incubator

It's been a rough spring and summer so far for my chickens. I believe that it is important for the girls (and boys) to have free ranging time - but unfortunately that sometimes comes at a cost.

We've been at our current location for a little over 2 1/2 years and have had chickens from the very beginning. We moved into our little farm in the beginning of winter. Our property is surrounded by farmland and woods and very close to a state park that has over 7,000 acres of wooded land. With all this beautiful country around us, comes lots of different predators - and chickens are just about on the bottom of the food chain. Right from the start, we had a coyote take all 6 of my chickens after an ice storm destroyed their run.

After this heartbreaking event, my husband and I were determined to provide a safer and more permanent home for our flock. We sold our cute little chicken coop that housed up to 6 hens and was on wheels. Since we moved from 1/2 acre to 12 acres - we could now have more! We invested in building a BIG coop (at least to me) 8 x 10 ft. with a run of twice that size. It's super secure with fencing that goes a good foot under the ground.

Despite having this fantastic coop and run, I still feel that my chickens have a better quality of life with some free ranging time each day. With this free ranging, comes danger. Well, this year has been the worst - to the point that I actually started to think that the fauna in our area told each other about an all you can eat chicken buffet at Pear of Hearts Farm. We still have a flock, but it's quite young and are now only getting 1 or 2 eggs a day if we're lucky. I actually had to buy eggs last week for the first time in probably 4 years... gasp!

So, I decided that I need more chickens and I need them now... or at least pretty soon. I really didn't want to pay $10-15 (and up) each for young hens that are just about to begin laying - and I also didn't want to mail order chicks (as it's not the correct season in the local feed stores to buy them). I went to an animal auction with the intent of getting a good deal on some interesting varieties of chickens - but was disappointed with a poor selection of hens and a whole lot of roosters! (On a side note, there were more adorable bunnies and pigs than I could have imagined... and don't get me started on those goats! OMG!)

If you know me, you know that when I get an idea in my head, I don't give up easily. I wanted more chickens, I wanted a nice variety of breeds to get different colored eggs, and I wanted them now. So what's a girl to do? Go to the internet, of course! I searched Google, Facebook, eBay, Craigslist, and Let Go. On these sites, I was able to find leads to a few different varieties of hatching eggs, a never used incubator at a great price (box was open and it was dusty), and lots of information on how to hatch eggs. (Of course I also looked to my stack of books on chickens that I have hoarded over the past several years too.) So here I go!

Because I lost my only standard rooster (a Cream Crested Legbar) just last week to a fox, I knew that the eggs I had and would get for the next week (at least) would be fertile. So I stock piled my blue Crested Cream Legbar eggs. I am not terribly hopeful about the hatch rate for them, as the hen laying them is quite young - so I put all I had in the incubator. I also have one Black Sex Link x Ameraucana hen who is laying, and I'm hoping that she may have hooked up with said rooster before his demise. Thus, into the incubator went a whopping 1 egg from her. Next, I asked my super nice neighbor if she could spare any bantam Cochin eggs - and she was kind enough to share 2 with me (it's been super hot and those ladies aren't laying much at all). At the same time, I sent out a request to a chicken group I am a member of on Facebook, and a local member sold me 6 Welbar eggs and 2 Copper Marans. Finally, I scored a dozen cream and/or gold Brabanter eggs from a breeder about 35 miles away. So, into the incubator 37 eggs went this morning!

That's A LOT of eggs. If the impossible happens and all 37 hatch, I will be selling some chicks... ha ha! But, in reality, I am expecting about 50-85% hatch rate. Some of the eggs (although kept at a proper temperature) were more than a week old. At least 1/2 were less than a week old, and the one dozen Brabanters were just laid yesterday. So, in my typical optimistic (yet realistic) way, I am prepared for the lower end of that scale.

I know that I haven't been great posting on this blog for the past few months. When the kiddo is home all summer, things get moved down the priority list - and other things that can't be ignored (yard work, lawn, garden, etc.) get moved up. Irregardless, I am hoping that this new endeavor of hatching eggs gets me back on track. I'm planning to update my progress (and setbacks) here. So stay tuned!

This is a picture of a gold Brabanter chick, it was shared with me by the breeder from whom I purchased the eggs. She's the Mr. T of chickens! ("I pity the fool!) Can you even stand the cuteness?