New additions and a note about farm life

Recently, we realized that our flock will need to be replenished regularly without the need to purchase new hens.  Easiest way to do this is to hatch our own eggs.  Cheapest way to do this is to produce our own fertile eggs.  That means we need a rooster......or two.

Meet Fred and Dodger

Fluffy Friendly Fred is a Buff Orpington.  He's HUGE!  Dodger is an Americana

Fred is more than twice the size of our largest hen.  Most of it is fluff though

Dodger will produce Easter Egger Chicks that will lay blue, green, or pink eggs

Fred has feathers all the way down his legs making him an ideal cold weather chicken

Fred is a gentle giant.  He has easily integrated into the flock

Dodger is more authoritarian.  He has been trying to keep the girls in line, telling them what to do and where to go.  The ladies don't like his approach as much.  I'm hoping that he'll mellow out soon

Our hens are quite friendly.  So far the roos have been too

I did want to make note of an important event that came and went without much fanfare.  I butchered my first chicken.  Something I never expected to be able to do myself.  I guess I'm outgrowing the city girl in me.  Chris being a vegeterian meant that the task would fall to me.  Our hen Gandalf has not been laying eggs for quite some time now.  And being a producing flock, we can't justify feeding a non-productive bird.  Gandalf was acting off, not eating, becoming listless.  I figured out she was crop-bound (her food was stuck in her crop and she couldn't digest it).  It was the perfect opportunity to see if I could handle butchering myself.  Put Gandalf out of her misery and cull a non-laying bird.  Butchering is a skill we will need on the farm.  To euthanize sick or injured animals.  When we hatch eggs its likely half of them will be roos and we can't keep more than two with a small flock.  Some will need to be culled.  We can't keep running off to the neighbours every time we need to butcher a chicken.  I researched methods and settled on one I believed to be least traumatic.  And studied videos of plucking and gutting the bird.  I won't show pictures of the process.  Its not something that was emotionally easy for me, nor should it be.  Taking a life should always be handled with respect.  We give our flock a good life, and I hope to give them all a good death when the time comes.  As to what to do with the bird afterwards, right now Gandalf is in our freezer.  We still can't imagine eating her.  But I believe that eating the bird is a way for the chickens to give back to our family once more.  In a few months, when the emotion has had time to settle we will see how we feel.