It's been a long time coming....the realization that change was necessary in my chicken husbandry department. It was something that I thought long and hard about.
Here is my flock as of several years ago:
Phoebe and Goldie were just pullets then. Sigh... so cute.
For the last two years, the hens have been laying fewer and fewer eggs, as is normal in the life of a chicken. And the fact that I had a breed of chicken that was very prone to going broody did not help matters at all.
It had become a dilemma for me to say the least.
I cannot afford to keep chickens as pets. I need them to be contributing members of the homestead. And this wasn't at all what was going on.
I needed to make a farm girl decision. So I put them on the local poultry group on FB. Within hours someone contacted me and wanted them. Even though I told the truth about their broody ways.
Turns out he wanted to grow his flock and WANTED hens to raise chicks!
So today he came and took them all to his place that is even farther up in the boonies than here... can you imagine?
A few hours after he had left, I got a message on FB from him... "Lydia is eating out of my hand!"
I know this may seem very odd to some of you that I would let them go, after all the fuss I have made over them. I'm going to miss each of them and their quirky personalities. But I really do have to be practical about this part of my life. I DO want to have chickens. I just want them to lay eggs more faithfully.
So. My plan is to spend time this fall deep cleaning the coop and planting the chicken run with clover and grasses to replace the moonscape that it has become. And in the Spring I will look for a breed of chicken that is less likely to be broody so often and that takes the egg laying part of their life a little more seriously. :-) And yes, I'm sure everyone will have a naming ceremony. [Certain things will never change around here.]
Sometimes it's tough to be a farm girl.
This is one of those times.
Phoebe and Goldie were just pullets then. Sigh... so cute.
For the last two years, the hens have been laying fewer and fewer eggs, as is normal in the life of a chicken. And the fact that I had a breed of chicken that was very prone to going broody did not help matters at all.
It had become a dilemma for me to say the least.
I cannot afford to keep chickens as pets. I need them to be contributing members of the homestead. And this wasn't at all what was going on.
I needed to make a farm girl decision. So I put them on the local poultry group on FB. Within hours someone contacted me and wanted them. Even though I told the truth about their broody ways.
Turns out he wanted to grow his flock and WANTED hens to raise chicks!
So today he came and took them all to his place that is even farther up in the boonies than here... can you imagine?
A few hours after he had left, I got a message on FB from him... "Lydia is eating out of my hand!"
I know this may seem very odd to some of you that I would let them go, after all the fuss I have made over them. I'm going to miss each of them and their quirky personalities. But I really do have to be practical about this part of my life. I DO want to have chickens. I just want them to lay eggs more faithfully.
So. My plan is to spend time this fall deep cleaning the coop and planting the chicken run with clover and grasses to replace the moonscape that it has become. And in the Spring I will look for a breed of chicken that is less likely to be broody so often and that takes the egg laying part of their life a little more seriously. :-) And yes, I'm sure everyone will have a naming ceremony. [Certain things will never change around here.]
Sometimes it's tough to be a farm girl.
This is one of those times.