Chicks & the She Shed

Back in the spring Maggie bought some chicks to raise for eggs.  We have 6 boys together total and the amount of eggs we go through at a time is crazy.  We hope that these ladies can help our boys grow big and strong.  In order for them to be happy and produce lots of eggs, we wanted them to have a nice place to rest.  Introducing the She Shed and our journey to being chicken farmers.

We spent a lot of time putting together this She Shed.  Did we have plans for it? No. Is it perfect? No.  But we all built it together and we love it!

The originals.  Maggie bought 10 Barred Rock chicks.

The boys watching over their chicks.

We wanted to add some variety so we drove to Lebanon to pick up a few more from a local farmer to add to our mix.

Meeting their other sisters.

Pasty butt.  Something I wasn't aware about.  But it's a thing.  As chicks new feather growth starts, it can get in the way of things and that causes problems with evacuation.  Some of these chicks got a nice warm bath in the first few weeks we had them.

I wish I could nap like this!

Enjoying the outside sun!  

The She Shed got a nice coat of paint!

Free ranging!  The love it out here.  Look how big they have gotten!

When it got warmer we moved them to the outside tractor that Ryan and I bought about 10 years ago.  They will hang out here until we complete the She Shed.  At this point Maggie lets them out every morning to free range and then when the sun goes down they make their way back to the coop!

Adding the doors and run.

Packed in like sardines.

Soooo...... Mark and Maggie go on vacation and I'm in charge of making sure the chickens are taken care of.  I drove out one morning to let them out and went back home to work. After work I went out to put them back in the tractor and make sure they had enough food and water.  I get there to find only 5 left.  There were 3 hiding in the tractor and as I walked around the house one flew out from under the grill over and I found another one scared to death on the front porch. We are not 100% sure what it was be we think that chicken hawks spent the day feasting.  I was so sad that this happened on my watch.  We went from 13 chickens to 5 in one day.  

So I hopped on Tractor Supply and ordered another round of them.  With the She Shed almost complete, these ladies should be safe from predators!

Picking them up from the Post office!

I bought a variety this time.  Look how cute they are!  I can't wait to see what beautiful colors they turn out to be!  These will produce a variety of colored eggs.

Now I didn't get pictures of these but Ryan bought some meat chickens to process for ourselves.  We reached out to our friends, Hollyn and Adam, for tips on how to care for them.  We actually got these about a week before the chicks above.  So we actually just put them all together in the tractor and finished the She Shed run and put the big ones in there.  We built this movable tractor to house them in and will move it occasionally to allow them to "free range" in a way along with proper feed.  

Here are the newbies getting a few minutes out of the tractor to run around- supervised of course.  The She Shed is completed along with the run.  Unfortunately in the short amount of time that it took us to complete the run we had another 2 get picked up by a predator leaving us with only 3 of the original's.

These are the meat birds.  The ugliest things I have ever seen!  Poor Hollyn and Adam.  I have called/text them multiple times because I thought they were sick, had.  Thankfully I was reassured that they are just ugly birds and this is their process.  Mid September we will processing them ourselves!  

I will continue to keep you updated on the process!