Our Little Suburban Farm

This is one of my favorite times of year. I am pretty sure I have written a blog every year at the beginning of every spring that says that. It's true. I love the warmer weather, but not so warm you can't go outside. I love the flowers and the greening of leaves. I LOVE planting our garden.
We also added a new little treat to our lives. Chickens. 10 of them. Egg laying chickens each of them are. They are still young, so not all of them are laying yet. We started out with 5, but decided with our family (and the space we had) we should get 5 more. So, a week after our first 5 were purchased, we bought 5 more.
You don't need a lot of space to have a wonderful place for fresh foods. We have learned that and we try to use our space wisely! we only have a little more than 1/3 of an acre of yard, but we have a nice garden that gives us fresh fruits and vegetables and a small chicken run. It may take a little more work on our part, but at least we know we are getting food that is great for our bodies, we know where it comes from, and our kids get to help so they, also, know where their food comes from.

I am going to do monthly updates, with egg counts, the fruits and vegetables we get out of it and our chickens progress! Everyone has enough space to grow a plant or 2, everyone!

Meet Afro, she'e a little "flighty," doesn't really liked to be bothered much (Addison's chicken)

Meet Diamond, she is a big girl, and doesn't seem to mind being around us as long as you don't move to quick (Isabelle's)

Meet Thor (Adams Chicken)

Meet Captain America, this girl LOVES worms, she'll follow your fingers around all day long hoping for a juicy worm! (Philips)

Meet, Chicken (yes that is her name), she loves being around, walks in between our legs and comes right up to our faces to say hello (James')

Isabelle holding Diamond, with Afro poking out in the background!

Keeping Chickens is not quite as hard as it seems. Of course I have always wanted to live on a real, out in the country, lots of property, farm. So maybe I am just a bit weird when I say love working outside and getting chicken poo on my shoes!

You do have to keep up with the poo, it's not the prettiest job, but we don't want our eggs, or our chickens in poo. Since we have 10, it's more work than when we had 5, I have to clean up every 3-4 days instead of the once a week I was doing with 5. When they run out of water, which is about every 3 days, I rinse the waterer and fill it back up, now that we have hung the waterer it keeps it MUCH cleaner, leaving it sitting on the ground they use it as a restroom(yuck) and kick dirt into it. I top off the food about once a week as well, thankfully we chose a large feeder, that is also hanging, so it last a good long time. We have been giving them all of our veggie and fruit scraps that they are allowed to have. For their entertainment and for the best egg quality we have been hanging some kind of leafy green for them to peck at. They LOVE it! Keeping chickens may add another element of work for you, but it is totally worth the reward in my opinion, especially with our breakfast loving family!

The orginal coop is sitting on top of a table Adam built (food and water hanging underneath) and a ramp to go up, Adam also made. Plenty of roosting and staying out the weather areas for them as well.

 A little chicken knowledge: Chickens always go back to their "roosting area," or bed, at night. As the sun sets, they will find their way home to go to sleep...it's quite amazing really! Even if one got out of our run, she would come back to go to bed!

Shot from Above, nice big area for them to roam and get away from each other. As you can see, one chicken has even made it to the TOP of the coop

Our Garden is slowly but surely coming along. I have some seeds and some plants we bought at our local garden store put into the ground. I can't wait to start picking dinner from the garden! Lots of lettuce plants, not only for us, but for the chickens as well. 2 kinds of pea seeds are in and are just barely sprouting now, 3 rows of radishes that just sprouted this week and a row of spinach seed that I can't really see just yet.

Lettuce plants

The south side yard is a dedicated raised bed garden area, with 6 raised beds, one you cannot see off to the left.

FRUIT COUNT: None yet. Hoping to make a salad before the next time I update

EGG COUNT
We got the 1st 5 chickens on March 1st
3/8- First Egg (laid by Chicken)
3/9- Egg #2 (laid by Chicken)
We got the 2nd 5 chickens on March 10th
3/10 (which also happened to be Sunday) Addison pointed out that even chickens needed a day of rest
3/11- Egg #3 (found it early in the morning, thinking it was laid by Chicken) and #4(Floppy, a new chicken) 2 IN A DAY
3/12- Egg #5 (Floppy) and #6 (Chicken)
3/13- #7(Floppy)
ate eggs for dinner on the 13th, they are SO much better than store bought!
3/14- #8 (Floppy) and #9(chicken)
3/15- #10(Floppy) and #11(Chicken)
3/16- #12 and #13
3/17-#14 and #15

Weird that I know who laid what egg? I know, I know, I may have been slightly obsessed with checking on them  these first few weeks, so I would see who was in the nest box and go back out when they left the next box, and it had an egg. So far Chicken lays medium sized eggs and Floppy lays small eggs, but both f them are a breed that should, as the get older, lay extra large eggs. Can't wait for that day!

We also have a new chicken project in the works that I will be excited to show you in my April update!