Chicken Update

Hi, friends!

Just popping in with a little update on our chickees!

This is Daphne, our Buff Orpington hen. I was really choosy about which breeds to get when I was chick shopping back in February because we can only have a few hens on our suburban lot, and I’m so glad I got a buff! She is the calmest, friendliest girl.

At three months old, our hens are still on chick feed and won’t be laying for another month or two. Aside from the baby chick phase, the egg laying phase was what I was most looking forward to about owning chickens so it’s been hard to wait! We’re getting close, though!

The girls have been living in their coop for several weeks now and seem to like it. They have a covered area, an attached run, and a coop with a daylight activated door. I’ve thought about getting a chicken tractor for the yard so that they can scratch around in the grass a bit without being prey for hawks and other predators that roam our area, but for now we have a makeshift portable run that does the job.

In addition to chick feed, our girls get lots of fresh produce from the garden and kitchen scraps like strawberry tops and cantaloupe rinds. (Remember to provide grit to aid digestion if you give fibrous foods to your chickens.) They also love bugs and grubs!

Eventually I’ll photograph our coop setup and write a post about it. We ended up putting it in our side yard instead of the back yard, so it’s hard to capture in the small space. It’s coming, though—stay tuned!

That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for stopping by and happy spring!!