Look what I got

I got my registration card for keeping poultry on our property in the mail!!  Now I'm considered a farm and I can legally raise chickens :)  I had to do a lot of research as to what I needed to do BEFORE the chicks got here or I could have gotten a BIG fine! 



I also learned something about eggs today!  Did you know that if you have farm fresh eggs (DO NOT WASH THEM) that you can leave them on your counter for up to six weeks!!!  They taste better if they are not refrigerated before you eat them!  With us that's not going to be a problem because we will eat them within the week we collect them and just sell the others.  You DO have to refrigerate any that you are planning on selling tho.  So we are planning on doing this and see what the taste difference is.  I am learning SO much about chickens this month! :)

Please people do NOT leave your store eggs on the counter tho!  They have already been pre-washed and I don't think it would be a good idea!  There is a coating on the egg (Bloom) and if that is washed off you could get all sorts of bacteria in  your egg...am I right Kelly??? LOL 

It's tuesday and it's STILL April lol...and I sure hope my incubator will be here Friday or Saturday so I can plug it in and read the directions and get it warmed up a day before kelly's eggs get here.  Keep your fingers crossed!!!    

Lets count!

25 more days before I have my chicks! :)  Still seems like way to long!  The good news is I will have eggs in my incubator WAY before then to help keep me entertained :)  I will take pictures so watch for that next week sometime. 

It's ordered!

One week to 10 days from today I will have my incubator in hand and warming up! :) You have no idea how excited I am.  AND I may think about hatching out some guinea's for wood tick control ;) god knows we have a TON around here!  I really love the violet color ones.  Oh boy...I hope I don't get addicted to hatching eggs!  LOL 
Oh we got the plan of our hen house all figured out last night and we will be shopping for the supplies very soon. 

INCUBATOR

I'm ordering it today...right after this entry actually!  WHOO HOO!  Hopefully I will have eggs to put in it now!  Kelly if your willing to sell some of your eggs let me know!  Either that or I will have some from our chicken lady...just not sure what I would end up with ya know.  LOL I seen she had a Barred Rock male and some big black male with some greenish feathers.  When I went to pick up eggs today at her house I seen them all out free ranging and so I called from my van window..."Here chick, chick, chick"  Well kind of freaky when you have 25 or more chickens come running at your van LOL!  Nic loved it!    So did I to tell ya the truth.  I was talking to the Barred Rock "Boss" and he was really listening with his head cocked.  It was so cute...but he kept cock-a-doodle doing at me the whole time.  I remember her telling me that one of her males were mean and would attack people so I cautiously got out of my van and nothing happened...they stayed their distance from me but they followed me up the stairs even.  Here I am carrying 5 doz eggs hoping I didn't step on a chicken!

Well, I will update when I get my incubator in the mail. I did contact a person who sells Pure Auraucana chicks not the EE (Easter eggers) version of them...I may be hatching some of those out ;)  He said they are hard to hatch out tho and that I should try something different for my first hatch. 

By the way

    I'm SO taking the video camera with us when we pick up the baby chicks...Stefan will be allowed to stay home from school that morning too.  He's excited and I don't want him to have to miss this ;)  His chicken is the male one.  He can't wait to meet him.  So watch for that video!  We have to open the box at the post office to see if they are all alive!  I hope they are!  One guy on BYC forum waited for that phone call in the early morning (they usually call about 4 or 5 am)  to come get his chicks and they never came.  A week later everyone decided they were "lost in the mail" another words DEAD!  POOR THINGS!~  They shipped him a new batch and those made it on time.  I pray mine make it or I will freak out! lol 

Good News!

Hubby agreed to get me an incubator!  I will let you know when I order it.  I'm not spilling the beans as to why he changed his mind though! lol  Anyway...look what Lindapooh found for me!  Isn't that just the cutest thing! 



THANKS LINDA!  HEY, it's finally UNDER a month to wait! ;) 

30 more days!

30 more days...until my chicks get here from Ideal poultry.  That's still a month away!  lol  It seems like the days are just slowly ticking by.  Maybe I need to find something else to keep me busy...like CLEANING MY HOUSE! lol    Ok, well the news today is that hubby said NO to an incubator *CRYING MY EYES OUT*  Oh I really wanted one but he says if I can't get the cheap one I'm not getting one. Well I refuse to get a cheap one because there is only a 50 percent hatch rate in them.  I'm not going to waste 50 percent of my eggs for no good reason.  We could be eating those LOL.  So until I can figure a way to make some money ($157.00) *rummage sale signs flash in front of me* I am not getting my bator :(  I can look for things to sell on Ebay maybe. lol 

Thanks it for today's rant......

OMG LOOKIE LOOKIE!

Ok folks...I don't remember if I mentioned before that we get our farm fresh eggs from a lady near us?  Well, If I did then you know that I was considering putting the eggs in a bator and hatching them out!  The question was...were they fertile!?  Well LOOK!  See the white bullseye shape towards the top of the yolk?  THEY ARE FERTILE!   This was an Ameraucana egg (easter egger as some call them). This excites me! 
 



I want to run to get a incubator now so Friday when we pick up our eggs I can put them in there :)  Both eggs I cracked of the Ameraucana's were indeed fertile.  Some of the brown ones we got (I have no clue what chicken they came from) were not.  I know she had the barred rock so maybe they were hers.  I can't wait for hubby to come home so I can TRY to talk him into going and getting one!  LOL  Stay tuned!  I may have baby chicks a few days sooner then planned ;)  I would like to start them close to the first so I can hatch them out about the same time we get ours that I ordered in the mail. HOW can I be this hooked on chicken already ??? LOL 

BTW...YES I DID EAT IT FOR LUNCH!  UGH!!  It tasted lovely though lol 

Building a Brooder Box for our baby chicks

OK WOW It's taken me THREE tries to get this entry in and quit frankly I'm getting Pi****! lol  I keep putting the pictures over to far and the the whole screen goes blank! And my entry vanishes!  GRRRR  Here is try THREE! 

A few days ago we built a brooder box for our chicks. The chicks will be delivered on the 23 of May.  We started out with a regular box from Walmart.  This box was perfect...we got it in the produce dept and they are the boxes that hold the watermelon.  Very thick and sturdy!  Perfect for what we need it for! AND when we are done with it I will fold it up and store it for next time ;) 



We do have to build the screen top and the floor for it and this is why it needs a floor!  Now after I got this someone did tell me you can ask for a cover and that cover can go for the bottom.  ME, I prefer to just make one out of plywood as it would be easier to clean and dry out if it happened to get wet.  Update:  i'm done with the brooder box now and I was happy we used plywood as the water was spilled a few times and the wood dried out nicely...cardboard would not have dried so well and may have molded as well. 



The dimensions of the box are 40" X 48" and 25 " high.  Here we are building the top and cutting the floor.  Very easy stuff to do :) SO FAR!  We may be saying different when it comes time to build the Hen house! 





Our little helper :)





The floor in:



Our finished product:



We got everything we need to start our little flock EXCEPT the flock!  I can't believe it's only the 21st of APRIL and I have to wait until the 23 of MAY to get my chicks!  :(   I'm sure I will grumping about it until then! 

Now look what we picked up at Fleet Farm!  I'm so excited about this little thing you don't even know!  Check this out:

It's a thermometer to keep track of the temp inside the brooder box!  you set the device below where ever you are.... The very top is the time...the middle temp is our indoor temp and the bottom temp is the brooder temp.  Now it's only reads 62 right now because the light is not on and it's cooler in our basement then it is upstairs.  Of course the bottom temp will read 95 once we get our babies in there! 



And you set the below device inside the brooder box as shown below: now this can be mounted on the wall of the box so the chicks don't poop all over it too!  Note...will duct tape around the edges so the babies don't get their little feet stuck in the cracks. 



Here we are testing the thermometer and it works perfectly!  It reached 95 degrees in no time at all.  About 30 min prob!  We will of course make sure it's at the perfect temp before we go get our birds. This little gadget was well worth the money and it was only about 13 bucks at Fleet Farm :) 



Here are all our supplies:




I also got the area where our chicken coop will go raked...well, 1/2 raked.  Will get the rest prepared this week.  Then it's time to start building our Hen House! :)  can't wait!  Our hen house will go to the right of our dog kennel...we don't use the dog kennel but when my sister comes up to stay with us she uses it.  So I didn't want to tear it down.  It's in great shape yet! 



Well folks...there you have it!  WE are ready for our chicks!  I want them now!  I can't get them for a month yet! :(  you will here more from be before I get them I'm sure :) 

Welcome to: Hanin Wit My Peeps!

This is all about my chickens!  I do have a "normal" journal  and if you let me know I can add you to it. It's private at this time.

Here I am raising 11 hens and one rooster.  I have NEVER tried this before and to tell you the truth I'm not scared or worried I can't do it.  I feel I have enough knowledge now to do what needs to be done when raising chickens. 

My Hero and inspiration when it comes to chickens....The Chicken Chronicles. . Kelly  has been there to answer all my questions...she has been raising chickens for over 5  years so I trust her expertise!  Her journal is a must read if you like chickens!

There are so many reasons to raise chickens!  I will post more entries with Pros/Cons later on this week. 

We will not recieve our chickens until May 23 of 2008 and I can tell ya...it's going to seem like forever!  I am so very excited!  I have a brooder box made already.  Pictures to follow in another entry!  And we have purchased everything we need to get them started.   Our next project...building the coop and the run.  Watch for more details on that as the month goes by.