Poultry Picking Process

Today we picked our new pack of productive and personable poultry for 2018. Perfect!

Ian ordered 24 Lohmann Brown hens from our trusty neighbourhood farmer in Saint Isidore. These ladies are 19 weeks old and just ready to begin laying eggs. They will be ready for pick up either February 8th or 15th.

Lohmann Brown.

I ordered our day old chicks from Performance Poultry in Prince Edward County. After changing my mind a bunch of times, I decided to go with 15 Wyandotte hens. I picked an equal number of Silver Laced, Partridge, and Columbian colours. 

Silver laced wyandotte.

Partridge wyandotte.

Columbian wyandotte.

Variety is the spice of life. However, we have found that if we get too many different breeds of hens some inevitably get picked on. This results in featherless bums. So sad.

Guess what? Chicken butt! 
The featherless bums of the hens lowest on the poultry power hierarchy.

This time, I decided to try ordering the same breed of bird but in different colours. Maybe now everyone will get to keep their bum feathers.  We will pick up the tiny chicks in mid-April but they will not start to lay eggs until early November.  In the meantime they eat, grow, poop, and generally act adorable.  The boys love raising the chicks and seeing them grow up.