I've realized that so much has changed since the last time I wrote about the chickens! Here's a little update if you're curious :)
Sadly, we lost one of hens this summer. Good ole Frida. By far our favourite hen! The only one that would stand still when the kids came near and let them pick her up. She got something called an impacted crop which I guess is pretty common for chickens. We knew that it would eventually kill her so when we got a text from our house sitter while on vacation we weren't too surprised. Iris was very sad though. When she's overtired she'll still sob "oh I miss Frida! She was my best chicken!". Poor girl!
To be honest I'm quite surprised that we haven't lost any of the other hens to predators! I've jinxed it now but we live pretty close to a conservation area so we've kind of prepared ourselves for something to snatch a hen. So far so good!
In happy hen news, this past spring we got two baby chicks! Iris saved up her allowance for months and was so excited to buy her own "babies". We let her name them and she went with Dolly (Parton; Jolene is one of her favourite songs) and Betty (if Harvey was a girl he was going to be named Betty so she heard the name a lot. Guess that name's out for our next kid!). And oh man, I will forever get baby chicks instead of pullets now! The temperament of Betty and Dolly is so different than the others which we got as full grown hens. Betty and Dolly will follow us around out back, aren't nervous around Gus, and let the kids pick them up so easily. Dream chickens! Plus their colours! So beautiful!
In terms of eggs, we only get about 3 eggs a day from the 5 hens. Which I mean, if you were doing it for the eggs isn't the best lol. Factory egg layers are typically killed after a year since their production goes down so much but our chickens are more pet chickens now I suppose. I remember before we got them Dave and I thought "well we'll just get them butchered when they stop laying and use them as soup chickens" but then you name them, the kids (and let's be honest, Dave and I) begin to adore them and you can't possibly imagine having them killed regardless of how little eggs they are producing. Pretty soon we'll be running an eggless chicken nursing home ;)
This time last year we we're getting nervous about the coming winter and if the hens would survive the cold. This year we have another whole year of experience under our belts and are confident that everything will be just fine.
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We buy all our hens from this amazing farm called Happy Hens Heritage Farm. It's a bit of a drive but the owner, Marina, is so kind and helpful. She gave us a little how-to booklet when we picked up our chicks and has (happily!) answered many of our questions for us as we venture into this chicken adventure. Highly recommend her farm if you're looking into chickens, especially interesting breeds.
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