Teach Me!: My Backyard Chickens

August 14, 2014

A few years ago, I bought six chicks from TSC in Northern Kentucky on impulse for an Easter present for the kids. One chick drowned in the water. The other five became young adults. Then I had two die from heatstroke. They were rather large and the coop was in direct sunlight because it was early spring and I was trying to keep them warm. I know a lot more about raising chickens now then when I first got them. So then we were down to three-two hens and a rooster. Well, my rooster and hen ran away together to the field next door. I like to think that they lived a long and happy chicken life. This left us with one sweet black chicken. When she died about three years later, I decided to take a break from chickens.
My husband asked me one day if I wanted to get some more chickens. I thought, sure why not, but at the time TSC was past its "chick" days. A woman I worked with had two children. Her son started raising chickens as a 4-H project. He raised petite cochin bantams. I bought three for $10, thus my love for chickens was renewed. This time two of them grew to adulthood. The rooster and the hen got together and I thought it might be kind of fun to hatch some eggs.
So after doing some research, I learned that after a rooster and hen "mate" the hen will lay fertilized eggs for the next two weeks. I gathered six eggs. We successfully hatched 5/6 eggs on May 5, 2014.
Here are the parents and the babies. The babies are now 11 weeks old. I gave one rooster and my prettiest hen to one of my best friends and kept the other three babies plus mama hen. Mama Hen belongs to my niece so I can't get rid of her.
I had so much fun hatching these babies that I decided to hatch an Easter Egger Bantam--cutest thing ever. He/She is two weeks old now and belongs to my 2 year old nephew.
I have seven more eggs in the incubator. As of candling them yesterday--there are definitely two very active babies. Can't wait until they hatch--they were part of a mixed dozen plus four more of my own partridge petite cochins.