Chickens!

As some of you may know, we moved out to the country in November of 2010. We've been planning on getting laying breed chickens from eFowl for a while, but we had to wait until it was closer to spring for all of the kinds we wanted to be in stock.

When I checked a couple of days ago, they had everything we wanted except one kind, so we decided to go ahead replace those with a different kind and place our order.

We are getting 5 Ameraucana pullets, 5 Australorp pullets, 5 Brown Danish Leghorn pullets, and 5 Welsummer pullets. I did a ton of recearch to make sure that we picked out breeds that are good layers, lay a variety of colors, and have good temperaments. I've read that leghorns can be a little flighty, but our friends at Life In A Shoe said that their leghorns are their friendliest chickens! We followed their suggestion and ordered brown leghorns instead of the regular white leghorns so that they won't be as easy for hawks (which we have a lot of) to spot.

The Ameraucanas are also called "Easter Eggers", since they will lay blue, green, and sometimes even pink eggs! I've read that pure Ameraucanas will only lay bluish eggs, but that the hatchery variety are not usually pure.

The Brown Leghorns will lay white eggs, like the kind that are usually sold at grocery stores. They will probably be the most prolific layers.

Australorps lay large light brown eggs and are also very prolific layers. They are black in color and (if I remember right) grow to be the largest of the hens we ordered.

The Welsummers lay very dark brown eggs, which can be nearly black in high quality birds, but the eggs from hatchery birds aren't usually that dark.

Our chicks should get here somewhere around February 18, and they will be about 2 days old. We're busy getting everything ready for them right now! The chicken house is about 12'x12', but when they're little they have to stay in a much smaller area so they don't wander away from the heat and food and get "lost". (Apparently they aren't too bright at this point.) As they get bigger, we can let them have the run of the whole house and the yard! We are really excited about them!

Stay tuned for more updates about our chickens - I'll be sure to let you know when they get here!