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 To help educate backyard poultry owner’s about infectious poultry diseases and protect their birds, the United States Department of Agriculture is again offering a free calendar for 2012, called: Backyard Biosecurity: Keeping Your Birds Healthy. The calendar features full-color photos of birds like the one shown below, and can be ordered at: https://web01.aphis.usda.gov/LPA/Biobird_orders.nsf/biobirdorders?OpenForm. You can order [...] Continue reading Free 2012 Bird Calendar  The two Buckeye hens that went broody this summer both successfully hatched three chicks; and today we have five chicks left that are growing up amongst the flock. All of the chicks that hatched seem to be extremely healthy, and we haven’t needed to provide any special care for the them at all (i.e. no brooder box, no pasty butts, no heat [...] Continue reading Broody Chick Update 
Our second Buckeye hen to go broody this season successfully hatched 3 chicks on Thursday (see “Broodies Buckeye Chicks – 10 Days Old” for more background), which is terrific; however, that means we need someplace to house them – the broody box is inside the coop and too small to hold mama and baby chicks for very long. As [...] Continue reading Second Broody Hen Hatches Chicks  The Buckeye chicks that our broody hen hatched are now 10 days old, and three of the chicks have survived. It’s fascinating to watch mother hen raise the chicks – I thought raising day-old chicks was great (see Raising Day-Old Chicks), but watching how she handles it is even better. The chicks hatched in the broody box in the [...] Continue reading Broodies Buckeye Chicks – 10 Days Old  The eggs under our broody Buckeye hen (see Building A Broody Box) were due to hatch starting yesterday (Tuesday) when it would have been 20 days since we set eggs under her; so we were shocked on Saturday when this showed up: Naturally, we then expected more eggs would be hatching shortly - but nothing on [...] Continue reading Broody Buckeye Hatches Chicks!  Broody Buckeye Hen – Sitting For 10 Days & Counting As of yesterday, our broody Buckeye hen has diligently been sitting on 15 eggs - for 10 days. She gets out of her nest box only to eat, drink, and relieve herself; and has only once signalled a desire to leave the broody box (see Building A [...] Continue reading Candling Broodies Eggs  Springtime is definitely the best time of year to get new chicks; and for us getting them in the next month or so is probably optimal. I was trying to compare options from several hatcheries but couldn’t find a condensed listing of them, so I came up with this one for easy reference. These are all larger, reliable hatcheries that also [...] Continue reading Time for Chicks – Free Hatchery Catalogs/Links!  The Buckeyes are 27 weeks old today; and a couple of the 14 hens have begun laying. The eggs seem so tiny compared to the Red Comet eggs (at an average of 2 1/4 ounces); however, they weigh in at 1 3/8 ounces, slightly larger than the weight of the Comets first eggs (they were 1 1/4 ounce). It’s been a great journey [...] Continue reading The Buckeyes Are Laying!  The Buckeyes turned five weeks old today, and left the brooder for the big world of the barn stall.
These Buckeyes seem much more inquisitive than the Red Comets we just raised, they act like they own the world.
When we opened up the brooder, I just sat back with the camera [...] Continue reading Buckeyes Leave The Brooder  The baby buckeye chicks are 3 weeks old today, and they’ve changed so much it seems impossible (see Baby Buckeyes for 1 week pics). Starting today, the temperature in their brooder was dropped to 80°, and they seem to be doing very well. We ordered 25, received 30, and lost 2 almost immediately; so we’ve got 28 baby [...] Continue reading Baby Buckeyes – 3 Week Update  One of the Red Comet pullets laid her first egg, so we can’t be far from having good eggs again. It’s amazing how a few chickens change your perception of grocery store eggs. They don’t taste right, they’re watery, and they look anemic too. The eggs from backyard chickens are sooo much better. The combs and wattles on all of the pullets are starting to turn red, but [...] Continue reading First Egg!  On Thursday, we got 30 Buckeye peeps (they actually hatched last Sunday), and put them in a brooder in the barn. We’ve waited along time for these Buckeyes (see Buckeye Chickens)! . The brooder is actually made from a TV armoire we found sitting beside the road, waiting to be hauled off as trash (yes, we asked [...] Continue reading Baby Buckeyes Are Here!  Thirteen Weeks Old
I picked up one of the chicks last night, and did a double take. She was a lot heavier than I expected – those sneaky little girls are growing up! We don’t know exactly how old they are (they were a surprise with the new coop), but think about thirteen weeks. We got them [...] Continue reading Growing Pullets  The chicken coop has residents! First, temporary installation of the chicken cam: Mandoor & Camera In Coop Next a feeder, waterer, and new bedding: Adding Bedding to the Coop And finally, the chickens: Chicks In Coop We’ve been handling them daily, so it was no problem catching them and carrying them to the new housing. [...] Continue reading Chicks In Coop  Buckeye Rooster We decided that our next chickens will be Buckeyes – we like this breed because they were developed specifically for Ohio conditions, are the only chicken developed by a woman, and are very cold hardy. They’re described as vigorous, resilient, and disease resistent, and are a dual purpose breed – meaning they can be used [...] Continue reading Buckeye Chickens |
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