Ship Full o' Pirates

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Photos are at the end.

I love chickens.  Love owning them.  Love raising them.  Love that they lay eggs for us.  Love looking at them.  Love learning about them.  I just love chickens.  Always have.

I got my first chick when I was 3 yrs old.  It was Easter and we lived in the country, 100 miles east of where we are now.  Don’t remember who gave it to me or how long I had it.  I didn’t have it long enough to see it grow up.  Either it died or my dad gave it to somebody who could raise it.  Just don’t recall.

Fast forward almost 30 years to my next chicken.  I was driving thru our suburban neighborhood and saw a  banty hen in somebody’s front yard.

What on earth?

So I stopped and knocked on the door and asked the folks if that was their chicken.  It had never ever occurred to me to try to keep chickens in the city… until that day.  It wasn’t theirs, and they didn’t know where she came from, so I caught her and took her home, named her Henreitta, put her in the backyard, and enjoyed her half-sized eggs until we had to move.  Then I gave her away.

I tried several attempts at raising chicks in the backyard in the new house, but they kept getting killed by dogs.  After several years in the new house many more houses were built right by ours, and we were SURROUNDED, hemmed in, suffocated by extreme suburbia.  No more chickens… for years and years and years.

And now that we’re out in the country where we can really raise chickens, we are really raising chickens!

Here’s the list.

First, the older birds that we got last Summer.  Only 2 are roosters, the rest are hens.

• 1 Brown Leghorn Rooster (we really shouldn’t count him)
• 1 Silver-Laced Wyandotte Rooster
• 1 New Hampshire Red
• 2 Buff Orpington
• 2 Barred Rock
• 3Brown Leghorn
• 7 Silver-Laced Wyandotte

All of these hens are good layers. The Leghorn Rooster is so beautiful, and he has a great crow, but he’s mean.  He routinely comes after me.  He chases Rachel.  But today he attacked Joe while he was leaning over to refill their waterer, blood was shed.  That leghorn rooster is gonna lose his head this evening.  Can’t abide animals that attack my kids.  I could live without ANY Roosters, but it makes hatching the eggs impossible.

Next let’s count the meat birds.

• 17 Cornish Cross – straight run because it doesn’t matter, they’ll be butchered soon.  I think these are currently just over 3 weeks old and we’ll butcher them in about 4 weeks (?) 5 weeks (?) I really don’t pay a lot of attention because it just ain’t my job, man.

Now lets’ count the chicks.

• 8 Barred Rock
• 11 Black Sex-Link
• 10 Golden Comet

All of these have a reputation for being great layers.  Barred Rocks are attractive enough with their black and white stripes, but the Black Sex-Links are gonna be some pretty birds.  Reddish wings, black everywhere else.  Very nice.  And the Golden Comets look like they’ll be a pretty ginger colored bird.

And last of all, we’re hatching some eggs from the older girls.  I tried to save as many from the leghorns as I could because leghorns use less feed to make eggs, and they make a lot of eggs.  Anyway, that project is taking place in KimC’s house.  They’re using our incubator that John used to hatch snake and lizard eggs way back when he owned a pet store.

By the way, did you happen to count?  That makes 44 layers (plus whatever hatches).  What in the world am I gonna do with nearly 44 eggs every day?  Well, for one thing, I’m gonna not stress over production rates.  And also, we’re gonna share with our friends.

Golden Comet

Black Sex-Link

Barred Rocks

Cornish Rocks

An assortment of last years chicks.  Buff Orpington (center)(I love how she’s really steppin’ out!).  Barred Rock (left).  Brown Leghorn Hens (the 2 in the center -back). Brown Leghorn Rooster, aka History (back right).  Can’t really tell, but it’s probably a Silver-Laced Wyandotte Hen next to the rooster.

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