PICKIN' CHICKENS!

With a lot of hard work, research, and much anticipation, our chicken coop is built and our chicks have been ordered.  Our dreams of collecting fresh eggs are steps closer to becoming a reality.  Even though there is still work to be done in receiving and raising up our day old chicks, our dreams are one step closer.

In the days prior to this, there has been a lot of research done including research on chicken coop requirements, coop location, and chicken care.  Another important part of raising chickens is deciding the breed for you.  We will be raising hens for egg-laying.  In our decision making process, when researching different breeds, we took into consideration only breeds that were heat and cold tolerant to our location in southern Indiana.  Due to the size of our coop, we decided we would need a smaller sized hen.  We also had a preference of having the largest brown eggs that we could get and still fulfill the above issues.

The chick we picked was the GOLDEN BUFF, AKA Red Sex Link.  This breed is one of the most exceptional brown egg layers.  They lay large brown eggs and the hens  weigh around four pounds.   This was our chick!

There are many hatcheries you can order from and have your chicks delivered to your local post office.  In the spring you can also get chicks from many farm stores.  We have ordered our chicks from Meyer Hatchery.  They will be arriving next week!  How exciting!  I will keep you posted on their arrival and our progress!

Happy Gardening and Farming!

Mindy

AND THE FARM GROWS AGAIN! SHADE GARDEN ADDITION

OUR MINI FARM GROWING AGAIN!

With a slight break in the temps this weekend, my very talented husband finished the new addition to our mini farm!  My brother had given us a set of cages he received for free from a friend of his, and my husband's mind started working!


Here are the cages as we received them:

We then decided to move the location of Oreo and Daisy's cage in order for the larger addition to fit in this location well!  We also had this small dog fence on our property as well.  It had some vining weeds growing through it and my daughter worked to remove those.  We are not sure if we like the fence in this area or not, we are giving it some time to see if it grows on us.   If we keep the fence there, it will be an area for the bunnies to get some exercise and somewhat of a safe haven for the chickens.  My husband had mentioned something about eventually building an enclosed area here, instead of using the fence. 

Here is a picture of the finished project.  This is the front of the area!

Here is a picture of the back of the area.  As you can see my husband has built boxes on each side of the new addition!  To the left will be the "chicken coop", complete with nesting boxes for the egg layers!  We plan on creating a ladder for the chickens so that they can enter and exit their coop!

Last but not least, here is the newest addition to our farm, Dusty.  He is a buck that we picked out from our favorite farm, 3G Farms!  A special thanks to them for their contribution to this new addition!


DUSTY

So with the construction complete on our newest project on the farm, now my work begins.  As soon as our temps begin to cool down a bit, I will be able to begin some landscaping for this area.  I have already done a lot of research on shade plants and will continue my research in order to pretty up the newest area of our farm! 

THERE ARE TREASURES HIDDEN UNDER THE WEEPING WILLOW TREE!

Happy Gardening!
Mindy