I really wanted to take some photos of the 6 new hens that our Greek friend dropped off last week, on Easter Sunday, but I was waiting for a nice sunny day to do so. We have had several nice sunny spring-like days this week, but I never got around to the photo session. Today, when I have all the time in the world, we have had a little return to winter. High of 28° today. Good reason to get the woodstove going again. I took these photos from the living room window.
So, Joseph our Greek friend showed up last Saturday to buy some eggs. The girls have gotten back to laying, and we are getting about 10 eggs a day. We sold him 4 dozen and the larger of the 2 roosters that was born here. Young roo had been beating up on our favorite roo, the Buff Orpington who is his sire, so off to Joseph for chicken dinner. Big Roo is much happier not being chased away from his food and his girls. His comb was turning black from the stress (really!). I can't kill my own chickens, but I can give the bad ones to someone else to kill.
The littlest roo born here, the one who was rejected by both mamas, is still behaving himself.
So Joseph mentions that a neighbor of his wants to sell him 15 hens for meat. He says they are young, beautiful egg layers that he doesn't want to kill. We couldn't take all 15, but agreed to take 5 or 6. Without any further discussion, he shows up early Sunday morning and drops them off. Later in the day, we spent several hours chasing them back home from the horse farm across the street. Even one of the horses joined in the chicken-chasing game. We were finally able to lock them up in a pen where they could learn where home is. I think they have it figured out now, and we are starting to let them loose again.
21 chickens total now: 2 roosters, 19 hens. Pretty soon we will be getting more than a dozen eggs a day. Good thing we have interested buyers!
And goat-milking season is about to start as well. I think we need another fridge!
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