Meet the Chickens!

Hey Steemies! Finally, I am getting around to some more of my animals! I currently have 21 chickens!

chickens

I'll tell ya the truth, I was kind of scared of chickens before... Well, only the adult ones.

Why chickens, Adrienne?

Our chickens are currently only technically meant for egg production. Though I do realize that in the future we may use them for meat. Which is why they don't have any real names. All of our animals (except for pets) have multiple purposes. Our chickens currently provide us with manure for the compost which will turn into fantastic fertilizer. Soon, hopefully... They will start laying eggs. They should start by mid-July! If we ever have a problem with a mean rooster, he will more than likely end up in the crockpot. That has yet to happen, but, it is a possibility that I've surprisingly accepted (we will see what actually happens when the time comes! haha).

I haven't named them in hopes to not get so attached. I let my chickens free range (I have 20 acres, it feels wrong not to!) and there is the constant threat of predators like birds of prey and coyotes. It will happen one day that I will be missing a chicken. It's not that I want it to happen, I just want them to be happy and roam free doing their chicken thing.

Anyway, back to it, I have 21 chickens of 6 different breeds and 2 of those 21 chickens are roosters!

white roo

So far, the count is:

4 - Easter Eggers (weirdos)
2 - Silver Laced Wyandottes (assholes)
2 - Australorps (scaredy cats)
3 - Welsummers (indifferent)
3 - Cuckoo Marans (also indifferent?)
4 - Salmon Faverolles (complete idiots)
3 - Blue Langshans (pretty cool, actually).

Over a while, I will post information about my individual chicken breeds, get good pics of them, and why I chose them!

We got our first batch of chickens at the end of February, and they're turning 20 weeks this July. 20 weeks is the magic average age for a chicken to start laying eggs! I'll later have to share with you more of the brooding process and their growing stages. I have some pics of my favorite chickens from when they were babies to awkward teen years, and current pics, it's really fun to see how they develop.

So here are some pictures of my chickens. They're weirdos. Only one of them is real friendly, she runs up to me and seems excited to see me. The others could take me or leave me, unless I've got food, of course.

I don't know how some people do it, but they manage to get real great images of their chickens. Me, I take 100 pics and get 2 MAYBE 3 useable images. Ah well. So that's what you get for now! That's not all of them. It's actually a little overwhelming now with 21 chickens when they surround me. They're hard to take pics of, maybe my chickens are just on crack or something, too hyper or something.

SOON. I plan to share the chicken coop, about my specific chicken breeds, and things like that. Cross your fingers for my freeloaders, they need to start laying soon! haha.

I've started introducing Chickens! Come meet some!

As always @farmstead here blogging from FarmsteadSmith!

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Photos by me using my iPhone 6s, unless stated otherwise!

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Nature on the Farmstead - These posts will be educational and informative about the nature that happens on my farmstead. Look forward to posts about wild animals, birds, wildflowers and plants, insects, and more!
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