Wednesday, April 15, 2009

One of our Barred Rocks, obviously complaining about something lol.






No Jib, that's not a meat chicken. Besides, it's not time to eat them yet you silly boy!



Tuesday, April 14, 2009

One of the Easter Eggers with her beautiful feathers coming in.


Why yes, Jib is in fact wearing an "I'm the Big Sister!" shirt. Yes, Jib is a boy; but this shirt was mine when I was little. He wore this when he went to see my mom, our way of announcing our big news ;)




Nope, the chicken is not dead. This is what chickens do when you lay them on their backs. Weird, huh?!




Updated Pictures

Note: Please remember to click on the photos to see the whole thing. If anyone knows how to fix the issue of Blogger cutting off my photos, please leave a comment or email me, thanks!


Here is one of the babies that we hatched. We bought the eggs from Destiny Farms thinking they were Silkie eggs but it seems we got a surprise! I emailed Joni, and she said it sounds like we got a Cochin mix.








And the ones we believe are Silkies (though I've never seen a Silkie in real life so what do I know? lol)






Saturday, April 11, 2009

Culling day

It came a bit earlier than we expected- one of our meat birds was acting funny- not moving, shivering and generally not acting right. Rather than letting it suffer (and most likely die anyway), the Mr. culled it and it's in the fridge now waiting for the grill. It's way smaller than we would have liked, but that's to be expected since they're not destined for the table for a few more weeks.

He said that he learned a few things- namely, that a chicken neck doesn't have much resistance when pitted against a grown man (we decided that breaking it's neck is more humane than slitting it's throat and less messy than chopping the head off).

So it's done- the first kill. It still felt awful, but I keep reminding myself that a chicken still dies when we buy it at the store. Being oblivious to the fact that it dies doesn't do anyone a lick of good. At least this way, we know that the chicken was cared for well during it's short life and that it died respectfully.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

My kid is all sorts of confused LoL

I went to make Jib eggs for breakfast, and one was broken in the carton, so I tossed it. Jib looks at it and says "poor thing". I said "What?" and again he repeats in his almost 3 year old very concerned tone "Poor thing" *sigh* So I asked "Why is it a poor thing?" and he says, "Chickie in there" *dramatic pause* "Gina take pictures?"

(for those of you not following, we just hatched some chickens, one of them didn't hatch and I took pictures and posted them on my blog. And yes, my child sometimes calls me by my first time and I am totally okay with that ;))

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I have my laundry room back!

And thank goodness, because the laundry was really starting to pile up! We finally moved the meaties into the family room, along with the egg layers. Now the only ones in the main part of the house are the baby Silkies, which are right in the livingroom.