Coop

SHHHHHH....  Here that?  That is correct, total silence in the house!  We moved all 18 chicks into this new coop yesterday.(after adding roosts, heat lamp and pine shavings to the floor of course) And all 18 did fine all night long and I slept all night without being woke up by chicken squabbles!

Here are our fuzzy legged girls, Yoko and Poachy, they are light Brahmas, you can see Yoko's legs in this picture to see how they have feathers.  These are the smallest of the chicks and I have been worried about them but they are holding their own just fine.

Here is Cutie on the left and Americana (which lays blue-green eggs) and Stripe on the right is a Barred Rock (this is Shane's favorite chick and lays brown eggs).

On another note here are the new bunny girls.  Sozo on the left is a silver New Zealand/Flemish giant mix (heavy on the Flemish giant I think) and the little grey one on the right is Lovie also a New Zealand/Flemish giant mix.  They are not related, from 2 different breeders.  We are hoping to keep a variety of blood lines.  Now just need to add our white New Zealand purebreds and we will have a full house!

If all goes well, next year we have talked about adding turkeys, and goats are still a maybe???  I am trying to talk Shane into adding a bee hive too, wouldn't that be cool!!!!

surreal life

Family just finished dinner and I am sitting here enjoying a nice glass of wine since I have no place to go tonight...and all hell is breaking lose around me...the 18 chicks are constantly peeping and pooping and now they won't stay in their brooder and will roost on anything!  Remind me again why I wanted to have my own farm...I am thinking another glass of wine will make it all better tonight!

Shane has started the Chicken coop and hopefully the chicks will transition nicely out of my living room. Note to self: if raising baby chicks again make larger, harder to escape brooder!

By the way our farm has grown by 4 feet!  We adopted 2 new female rabbits, both are New Zealand/Flemish Giant mixes.  Sozo is a silver colored 6 month old and Lovie is a grey 3 month old.  Now all we need to make our breeding set up complete are 2 pure white New Zealands, a boy and a girl (unrelated) that I want to get from the breeder in Spokane if at all possible.

sad loss...

Good and bad news today.  Good news, our rabbits had babies...Bad news, they appear to be premature and looks as if they were still born.  Just going by what our kits looked like with prior rabbits I do not think they were full term.  We have never had the first litter of kits survive from any of our rabbits in the past.  I moved Buck out to give Rosey some peace for a few days.  We will give it another try and hope for a better out come next month.  Still hoping to find a white New Zealand female to add to our group real soon.

smoking

Shane is trying to quit smoking again... please send me all your possitive energy so I can get through this!  Last time he quit for 10 days and decided to celebrate by buying a pack...hopefully this time it will stick!!!

Chicks!

Our flock is complete...Today I added 4 Americanas (Pokey, Yoko,Cutie and Rocko) and 2 Marens (Birdis and Turdis).  The Marens were added because they lay red eggs...so cool!  As you may remember the Americanas lay blue-green eggs, going to make for a nice looking egg basket...when they are finally old enough to start laying eggs that is.  The adorable little chick in the photo is Cutie.  We have been looking over lots of coop plans trying to decide what is the best option for us.  Man I hope this works out and we end up with mostly hens so we will have lots of eggs.  Would be nice to have at least one rooster though so we can maybe try to hatch our own future hens...

Livestock...

Here are the first 2 rabbits.  Buck the male and Rosey the female.  No babies yet.  I hope to add another male and hopefully 3 more females in time.  We are going to play it by ear to see how many breeders we need to have enough meat on the table.  My hopes are to have rabbit at least one night a week and have an additional rabbit stew one night a month.  Not sure how easy this is going to be though...

 

Here are the surviving 10 baby chicks.  We lost 2 the first night but all the others are stong and doing well.  The boys named most of them so we are talking about Sweety, Red Velvet, Blackie and Flamingo to name a few.  We have a variety and are to get some additional types this weekend.  Keeping fingers crossed that they are all females!  Hoping we are lucky enough to end up with only one rooster but with our luck I am sure that won't be the case.

Chickens and rabbits

I put in my chicken order today!  I am so excited!!!!  Next week the first 8 will be ready.  I decided to get a variety so we can see what we like best and go from there.  I chose Black Australorps, Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks which all have brown eggs and Leghorns which have white eggs.  In order to make a pretty egg basket I am adding some Americanas the following week which lay blue to green colored eggs.  I plan to keep my eyes open for Salmon Favorelles which are a light brown to pink colored egg...not a surprise to those of you who know me I am sure.

Today we got the new Rabbit Hutch in place.  It is HUGE and will keep 3 Does and 1 Buck separated then our current cage will sit next to it.  My original plan was to have 4 does and 2 bucks but we are a cage short for right now.  But, we currently only have 1 doe and 1 buck so we have time to figure things out.  Rosey and Buck wheat (formally called Nosey) are so in love.  It is so cute!  They are always snuggled up together and Buck gives Rosey little kisses all the time.  Of course I know this honeymoon phase will end quickly when Rosey is ready to have her babies.  Wheeler turned very mean to Dog and we would separate them and with in a couple days she would have babies.  I assume it will be the same for these bunnies.  The hutch is awesome!  It was built by Charlie our neighbor and he did an amazing job!

I really need to get caught up with pics!  That will be my goal when we get the chicks next week.