Here Come the Chicks

After mulling it over for a couple of years, we decided to start chickens this year. It came as a surprise to me that laying chickens and meat chickens couldn’t live together. I certainly didn’t want to have two coops with their own runs. We really don’t have the room for that. As well, we want to free-range our birds as much as possible; we didn’t even want to touch the logistics of trying to do that with birds that couldn’t be together. Then we found out that there are chickens that are dual-purpose. Aha! We can have our cake and eat it too! The trouble was when we started looking for dual-purpose chickens; we got a lot of blank looks. People at feed stores explained to us very slowly and in simple terms that they had layers and meat chickens, one or the other. The tolerance and patience simply radiated from them. I think I’m going to get a T-shirt that says, “Yes, Here’s Another Danged Person from Away”.

We found a place who ship baby chicks so next week our Buff Orpingtons and Partridge Chanteclers are coming. We thought they were the best breeds to go with. They are both apparently very mellow, laid back chickens and are winter tolerant. The Chanteclers especially since they were developed in Oka, Quebec to be hardy in winter. They are considered to be a heritage chicken, which is nice. We live in an old farmhouse so having heritage chickens runs with our theme. I hope the flight goes OK for them. I hope they are not traumatized out of their little chicken heads. I hope I can get them home and settled very quickly. I hope they like their brooder. I hope we get the coop built soon. Days old chicks – they seem so young, so little, so fragile, it’s really kind of frightening. Wait till they hear that at the feed store – that Person From Away scared of itty bitty baby chicks.