myMCMlife.com

This weekend we fulfilled a lifelong dream of raising our own livestock. Just kidding. Actually, Jason has been trying to convince me for a couple of years now to get backyard hens. He got a book for Christmas on urban chicken keeping and we started planning the fence to enclose our backyard…I was finally on board. The fence is now complete. The coop and run are designed on paper. The permit from Metro Nashville has been acquired.

Within the city limits we have a lot of regulations on chicken keeping. We have a large enough yard to allow the maximum number of 6 hens. Absolutely no roosters are allowed. We wanted to start out with a minimum of 3 hens and since the chick survival rate is not 100% and we have at best a 1/10 chance of getting a rooster, we started with 5.

Meet the girls. Left to right: Sunny S.U., Soufflé, Quiche and Meringue. Scramble is in the back, not showing her face. Sunny and Scramble are Buff Orpingtons. Soufflé and Quiche are Barred Plymouth Rocks. Mer is a Rhode Island Red.

Ali holding a chick for the first time. Isn’t it sweet? Major Mom mistake though…I should have had her sitting on the floor. She got startled right after this picture and dropped Scramble. (That’s how she got her name…) Scram isn’t doing great. She’s eating, drinking and walking but she’s kind of…crooked. She sleeps more than the others. Not sure how that’s all going to turn out yet. She’s really sweet and I’m trying not to get too attached to her in case we need to replace her. Eek. Our first chicken drama. I feel horribly guilty about poor little Scramble.

This is Meringue. She’s smart and feisty.

This is Sunny S.U. She’s very mellow.

The folks we got the Plymouths from gave us a dozen eggs from their full grown girls. They said they have more eggs than they know what to do with. We celebrated with poached eggs for dinner last night.

We still have a coop to build and a lot to learn but we’re all really excited about this new adventure.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 10th, 2014 at 11:00 am and is filed under Family, Family: Chickens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.