One of the flock: Sarah

Surprise! Another chicken post.

Bet you didn't see that comin' huh.

I debated on whether to post about Sarah or not. She is after all, our newest favorite. It reminds me of my Grandma. She used to say that the newest baby was always the cutest baby...until the next came along, of course.

Aren't her feet pretty?

Okay, now I know I sound like some kind of chicken freak but really...

...they are!

When you consider most chicken's feet, her black ones are pretty.

In fact, just this morning, my husband commented on her feet without any prompting from me. He said, "I like her feet."

But you know, it seems that the chickens don't do well after they are featured on my blog. Some terrible fate befalls them. Like when we found Mrs. Brown dead in the grapes...or when Goldie was apparently smushed! Wha...?

But Henny Penny is still alive and well. So I will throw caution to the wind and share our newest (and dare I say nicest) gal.

Sarah is a chick that my son incubated. We bought a dozen eggs from a local chicken lady in town who has Black Australorps. We were going to incubate a batch so we figured we should try some of her eggs. We brought Sarah home in an egg carton, or we could have had an omelet I suppose, but we didn't, thank goodness!
Here are the eggs ready for incubation, trust me, she's in there somewhere.
By the way aren't her feathers beautiful? She is black, but has a green sheen to her.

Only 4 of those black australorp eggs hatched and 3 of them were roosters. They were sold on Craigs List. Sarah alone remained.

At first there was talk of her being named Sylvia because we were reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and there is a Sylvia in there. But in the end the name "Sarah" won out.

By the way, "Sarah" is also the name of my daughter's doll and my niece's sheep (both named by my daughter). Sarah is a good utility name around here.

It's not hard to say why we like her so much. She has the sweetest disposition. She is calm and gentle, she doesn't shy away from you like the other chickens. She walks in a very graceful manner, has a longer neck than the other chickens and has very big eyes.

When you hold her she just looks at you and lets you pet her. She is sweet!

Here is a testimonial about black australorps off McMurray Hatchery page:

I have raised many types of chickens and BLACK AUSTRALORPS is probably one of my all time favorites. They are beautiful to watch, easy to raise, and also make great pets. My children always tame one or two of this breed each raising. The hens will actually sit in wagons and wheelbarrows and be wheeled around. What makes the chicken great is that it withstands the interaction with children very well.

I'd say so too.

How does your garden grow: May 2009

Well, it's that time of year isn't it? Have you planted your garden yet?

Here is a little shot of the garden so far. Not much has popped up yet.

I planted a lot of tomato plants this year. I don't know what happened, I kept buying them! I also planted a lot of basil because I am looking forward to freezing more pesto.

We are stringing our tomatoes up this year for a change. We'll see how it goes.

Livin' the dream

Today was D-Day for this batch of chickens. They went to 'market' so to speak.



My husband takes them to a local gentleman who processes the chickens professionally. He sees A LOT of chickens. The boys told me with pride that as soon as he saw our chickens he raved about how good they looked.

They were healthy and clean. Many times these chickens are raised in confinement and just look bad.


Somehow I don't think this is the life these factory chickens were hoping for.

It was sad for me. I really liked these chickens. They were friendly and cute. But we have to think rationally. We eat chicken, whether we raise them and butcher them or not.

They lived a GREAT chicken life, much better than the factory chickens that I have eaten more times that I'd care to think about.

Awww...poor babies.

Actually, I think these are the chickens that commercial eggs come from.

This is what our egg layers do all day. Here are the meat chickens free ranging out with them.

One last thing I wanted to share...The laying chickens LOVE the meatbird feed for some reason. One day our youngest son was playing with an old feed bag on a shovel. Walking around like it was a flag. He found that this completely terrified MoonRooster, who is the little nemesis of this son.

This son figured out how to keep the laying chickens away from the meatbird feeder by placing his 'scarecrow' next to it. The meatbirds were oblivious to it and it kept the layers away.

Pretty ingenious I'd say.

Gifts of spring

Auntie brought these flowers to my daughter on her birthday. She was somewhat mesmerized by them. She quickly scrambled up to the table, asked for a cup and took great delight in placing them one by one in just the right order.

All ladies like flowers, even little ladies.

Chickens in the garden

We keep the cornish cross meat chickens in chicken tractors. This allows them to be outside and in a new 'pasture' everyday. We just move the tractor daily to give them a new patch of grass.

The other day we noticed that one had escaped the chicken tractor. We went out to put it back in but it was so cute and friendly and seemed to love being out that we decided to let a few more out. We figured, we can catch them...right? What's the worst that can happen.



Okay, as you can see by now, we decided to let them ALL out and put them in the garden with us. It has a temporary fence up to keep the chickens out but it was freshly tilled and not planted.

In the past, the meat chickens seem to be uninterested in scratching or searching for bugs , they just sit in front of the feeders and eat. We thought that the instinct to scratch had been bred out of them. They are designed to grow fast and be eaten.

But we loved seeing these chickens revel in the fresh dirt, the worms, the seeds, they went to town! They even were taking dust baths!

My daughter decided to contribute to their cause. She grabbed a stick and went digging for worms like they were.

Doesn't she look like one of them? Head down, tail feathers up.

Okay, she's got something.

Gold...pure gold!

Sadly, this chicken never took the worm. It just didn't look right on that blue thing.

These chickens are WAY more friendly than the laying chickens. I actually love them. They come out to meet us and follow us around now.

We learned something. These chickens are not dumb, as we have heard they are. And they are REAL chickens, who when given actual bugs or dirt will do what God has made them to do.

This has changed the way we are doing things. Now we are letting our older meat chickens free range, and they are doing it.

More pictures to come.