A Joyful Keeper

I asked for one thing for my birthday…. chooks! Part of that request was fixing the chook yard. A cow had got stuck in it, panicked and headed out the side of the yard, leaving a big gap in the wire! So on the weekend dh and the kids worked hard at fixing and painting it. I enjoyed watching and taking photos..

We didn’t quite manage to buy the chooks on my birthday, but dh had yesterday off as well, so we visited “George the Bird Man” and came home with 8 hens and a rooster! I was so excited! So were the kids. We were even more excited when they laid two eggs today!

I got to pick the ones I wanted. I asked for a few that were already laying, and some pullets. They are all different breeds, which is a bit of fun. I particularly wanted to have chooks that will go clucky and sit on eggs, none of these new breeds that have their broodiness bred out of them. I think I’ve done well…. I’m sure I will have too many girls wanting to sit on eggs in this little group of chooks!

So, let me introduce you to our latest additions! They don’t all have names yet, but we are working on them. First of all, the patriarch and protector, Little Red (He is a miniature Rhode Island Red):

Here is my all time favorite - a Silkie Bantam, with the oh so imaginative name of “Silky”:

Isn’t she just too cute?! Elizabeth and I just want to pick her up and cuddle her! I would like to get a Silkie rooster one day and breed from her. There were roosters there, but they were her brothers, so I need to go somewhere else to avoid interbreeding.

Here are the “twins”, Freckles and Speckles. Elizabeth can tell the difference, don’t ask me!! They are pullets and should be laying soon. I think they must have some Wyandotte in them:

The rest are a bit of a mix, not sure what breed, probably crossbred by the looks of them:

So there you go…. I have chooks again! I am soooooo excited! I just love to watch them peck and scratch around, and listen to them cluck - it is very therapeutic! I’m also pleased to be able to feed them our scraps and gather eggs. What a fantastic birthday pressie!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.