Easter weekend saw an influx of new life on the 'farm'. At least we can use that word now that we have more than just a cat and dog.
Friday evening we brought home our chickens. I wanted Road Island Red's, but due to some logistical issues at the feed store, all they had was a straight run batch (mixture of male/female birds). We only wanted pullets for laying eggs. So we chose Buff Orpingtons. They are a heritage breed brought over from England way back when. We brought home 20 of them. The theory is that not all will survive to adulthood.
Next weekend we will go get our hogs. We are going to raise 3 feeder hogs this year. They are Duroc/Hampshire cross. One is for us, one is to trade for beef with my Fire Chief. He raises Angus cattle. I hadn't planned on three initially, but a couple guys at work asked if I would raise one for them to split. So......
And last but not least, Mommy got a new kitten. Sharon, the kids daycare provider's cat had kittens. I new that Karen wanted another one. I had let her know that I wanted one of the females early on. But she couldn't let Karen in on it. The whole time, Karen was working on me to convince me to get one. But I wasn't letting on to her about my plans. So last Thursday, we brought Muddle (name picked by Karen) home. So far Daisy, the older cat, hasn't quite warmed up to her. Give her time I think. Either she will or she won't but at least when Muddle gets a little older, she will be able to hold her own. This is the first time since Karen and I have been together that we've had a cat with a color other than all or almost all gray.
So, it's going to be a busy Spring getting up to speed on all the animals, especially the chickens and hogs. I have to admit on the chickens I didn't do all the homework I could or should have. I had my mind set on the red's. When we had to choose another breed, it was a last minute pick. So once we had them home I did a little Googling on the ones we chose. The biggest thing that we took note of was the potential egg production from these birds. On the average each chicken will lay 2-3 eggs per week. If only 15 chickens live to start egg production, we could be looking at around 35 eggs per week. The information I had on the Reds indicated that if we wanted a dozen eggs/week, we would want 15 birds. So there you have it. After looking at the potential number of eggs from these birds, we figured that we wouldn't have much problem selling fresh eggs to people at work.
We will keep you up to date on the animals and life here on the farm.
