2016 Chick Hatch

Justin and started keeping two hens at our old house in town. When we moved, we sent Ouiser and Clairee out to my sister- and brother-in-law’s house because we didn’t have a chicken coop. The coop was our big outdoor project from last year. The chicks we hatched out as well as the ones we got from the feed store have really hit their stride laying eggs. We have somewhere around 22 hens and 5 roosters. I love seeing the spectrum of eggs we get every day.

 

Unfortunately, life gets in the way and we forgot to gather eggs for a while. Nearly a week I would say. Justin decided to fix up the giant incubator we bought at an estate sale and try to hatch out some chicks. We set out around 100 eggs and waited the requisite 21 days for them to hatch.

  

Now we really didn’t have high hopes for a high hatch rate. We hardly know what we were doing. Folks keep asking what we’re going to do if they all hatch out and I replied I was going to be like Oprah passing out party favors.

Realistically, we planned to let them hatch, grow them out in the brooder until we could fairly accurately guess their gender, keep what hens we felt we could manage, give the rest away, and sell the roosters.

Three days before we were supposed to have chicks, Justin told me he thought he heard cheeping from the incubator. Amazingly, we had THREE chicks hatch out early.

  

It was fun every morning and evening seeing how many chicks had made their way out of the eggs. At one time, Justin opened the incubator and 16 had hatched out overnight.

   

As the numbers grew, we upgraded from a galvanized tub to a kiddie pool. With three post-hatch mortalities, we ended up with 54 chicks. We were proud of our 50+% hatch rate for only our second incubator trial and the first time in the big old incubator.

Our former neighbors in town had a brooder they gave us that is perfect for the chicks. Justin got it loaded up and brought out to the house. We filled it with pine shavings, the heat lamp, feeders, and waterers.

We have been collecting the eggs again for Michael to hatch out some of his own in his incubator.

September Randoms

September was very busy! We had lots going on but managed to squeeze in plenty of fun stuff with work and other obligations. Mama, Sami, Wyatt, and I attended a paint party. We had a great time although I will probably only do these on nights when Wy can go with someone else. He was quite a handful!

At the Governor’s Tourism Conference in Savannah, the Georgia Grown Trail 37 was recognized for a tourism award. I nominated this group not because I was a part of it, but because I am incredibly proud of the hard work the chamber officials and agritourism companies have put in together with all of the other partners!

 

Look at this ragged crew! We had a cookout at Jonathan’s house. He even had little water games and tons of water guns for the kids to play with.

Justin and Wyatt managed to get a little dove hunting in. I love to see my boys enjoying the outdoors together. I don’t particularly appreciate the need for recreational hunting—it isn’t something I was raised with, but Justin loves it and it gives them something special to do together.

 

We bought a trampoline and Wyatt loves bouncing around. We even got the kittens and May up on it.

Wacky Hair Night at AWANA. Wyatt loved having bright orange hair. You can’t see it but he also had a ton of glitter in his hair—and on everything else in our house!

We have always had Doc Bunny in the chicken coop. She loves bounding around in there. She eats with the chickens, digs burrows to cool down with them, everything! I was surprised when I looked in the coop one day and saw a kitten in there too!

One Saturday while Justin was working, Wyatt and I headed to Tifton for La Fiesta Del Pueblo. We enjoyed the day eating authentic Mexican dishes (and snow cones too!), riding the train, and watching the singers and dancers.

 

Country girl that I am, I keep a pair of mud boots in my car for moments just like this. I saw these gorgeous yellow flowers in the ditch bank on a dirt road by our house, put the car into park, and slung my mud boots on to climb into the ditch and get this shot. Wyatt thought it was hilarious to see his mama in her dress from work with mud boots climbing around in the muddy ditch.

We had some extra turkey one day and Justin decided to make some turkey sausage. It smelled amazing while we were making it and it was even better when we cooked it and finally got to taste it!

 

Chicken Update #5

The Cook Coop is overflowing with happy chickens, guineas, and Doc Bunny these days. We tried to let the guineas out in the yard but May’s cattle dog instincts proved too much for us to have free-roaming animals. She managed to nip out a few tail feathers before the guineas made their way back to the coop. Aren’t they pretty?!
  

The roost is wildly successful. The chickens enjoy it so much that they sleep out there at night still.

 

Doc Bunny likes hanging out with the chickens. I snapped her pic here nuzzling up under one of our blue Maran hens.

We got the frizzle and sizzle chicks transferred to the big coop. They are small but mighty! They can take on a grown rooster any time!

 

I have been amazed at the variety of eggs we’re getting. I love seeing the colors, shapes, and size ranges we get. These make me smile every single day!

  

Chicken Update #4

Our flock recently grew by 4—we got four frizzle/sizzle chicks. The frizzle chicks are ones where their feathers flip outward instead of laying flat. The sizzles are silkie frizzles meaning they have the frizzled feathers and feathered legs. They are the most docile chicks we have ever had. I can’t wait to see them when they are full grown. Right now it looks like they are losing a good fight with South Georgia humidity!

The chickens are enjoying the bounty of our garden. Veggies that have bad spots on them and won’t be good for us to can go right into the coop. They love tomatoes and corn!

This is my favorite rooster—my top gun, my big boy, our blue maran. He definitely rules the roost. I hatched him and 12 others out from eggs in the incubator. Yes, I took a selfie with him. I hope that by picking them up they will be more sociable and less likely to peck us.

Excitingly, when I was in Savannah for work, Justin texted me and let me know that we got our very first egg from our chickens we hatched out in January. We have gotten one or two eggs a day. They should all start laying soon enough and then we will eventually make little love shacks to separate the roosters and hens of specific breeds to fertilize the eggs and hatch them out in our incubator.

Aminals Everywhere!

For the week of Memorial Day while my in-laws were on vacation, there were 90+ souls on our little scrap of land. Aminals—Wyatt’s word—took over everywhere! We had Amanda and Michael’s chicks in the brooder, our cats and kittens, our chicks, our chickens, May, the fish, and the guineas, PLUS Lucy and her 11 puppies! It was literally a zoo at our house!

 

We have been letting the chicks hang out a little outside of their brooder and it is too cute to see them with the kittens.

The big cats made a tasty meal out of a black snake in our yard. Good kitties! Later that same night I found each of them with huge field rats’ tails hanging out of their mouths. Maybe they will turn out to be good hunters after all.

 

Wyatt and May shared some fresh watermelon one night after supper. I have never seen a dog enjoy a piece of watermelon like that!

  

While we had 11 puppies and Lucy hanging around, Wyatt and Pax definitely showed them some love. They were so cute but they all got tangled up under our feet, so we had little yelps every now and then when we inadvertently stepped on paws or tails. It’s a true wonder I didn’t fall and bust my butt trying to feed them every day!

Our visitors are back at their own homes now, leaving us with a more manageable 50-ish mouths to feed. PHEW!