Changes in the Chicken Yard

We came home from vacation to some great excitement in our chicken yard.

There’s been a lot of changes out there this spring. Our two three-year old hens never started laying again this spring and both ended up dying from internal issues. But we already had moved our spring chicks outside with them, and with our two one-year old bantams out there as well, I finally panicked:

There were too many chickens in our backyard!

But as it turned out, two of the new chicks were growing up to be extremely beautiful.

And of course, especially beautiful chickens, are actually roosters.  So we ended up dispatching those two.

Our two red chickens were looking suspiciously different, with one having a much more pronounced comb.  But we’re now satisfied that they are both hens, and their differences are simply from their two breeds.  That was a relief, especially since we paid for more expensive eggs this year to be “sure” they were all hens.

So in the end, five new chicks only ended up adding one to our total flock size.  That felt much better for our little back yard.

We hired a chicken-sitter to watch our flock while we were away, and when we came back. . .

The chickens were laying!  The small pale eggs are from our bantams, which were already laying but the brown and (eek!) blue eggs are from this springs’ chicks.

I am so excited about the Ameraucana eggs.  I’m sad that one of my Ameraucanas was a rooster, but I’m happy to have at least one.  I really wanted to get an Ameraucana last year, but those teensy bantam chicks put a spell on my and we brought them home instead.

These eggs are the great joy of having a backyard flock.  Life and food are better with variety.