Where Have I Been?

Easter Egger rooster

Where have I been? Well there has been an issue with my internet provider. They made changes to their email platform which caused an issue with my Google accounts. This meant that I have not been able to log into and do anything in Blogger or any of my other Google accounts. The issue is finally resolved and now I'm able to access everything once again.

In the meantime I was working my regular job and trying to keep up with things around home. I didn't get as much done in the garden as I had intended over the fall. I have been busy tending to my ducks and chickens. After the dog attack wiped out my layer flock I picked up a lot of young Easter Eggers. Hatcheries call them AmerIcauna. However, they are not a true breed and the spelling of the true breed of chicken is Ameraucauna. Those are a breed that lay blue eggs. The hatchery birds are usually Ameraucauna mixed with other breeds of chickens and they may lay any shade of blue or green egg, occasionally such a light brown it is almost pink.

Eggs from Feb 3

In the ones that I got there are 3 pullets  that are now 5 months old and one has been laying for about a week.

Some of the other girls are also laying now. At the top of the picture, the white egg is from my Welsh Harlequin duck, clockwise the next two are from the Buff Orpington pullets that survived the dog attack. The next three are from the Welsummer and Welsummer cross girls and then the cute little green egg from the Easter Egger.

December chicks

In December I hatched some chicks from shipped eggs and a few I had on hand from my layers after the dogs killed them. In this pick the one in the feed bowl is a blue Ameraucauna, pure bred. The little brown one with chipmunk stripes is a Welsummer. The larger black chicks are Black Copper Marans that were shipped to me from Texas. Due to horrible delays by the post office only 5 chicks out of 20 survived.

hoop coop

So I built a hoop coop, which could also become a greenhouse if I don't need it for chickens.

Chicks in the hoop coop

The black & white and gold & black chicks are from the layers that I lost. The white ones are definitely boys, to gold ones could be girls, but I'm not positive yet.

Fried Chicken

The boys are named Fried Chicken and Swims with Dumplings, they are mixed breed and I don't need them for breeding, so they will go to freezer camp when they are big enough. The girls can stick around as layers.

Black Copper Marans

Besides the shipped chicks, I also hatched out 2 Black Copper Marans chicks from shipped eggs, but I think they are both boys. I also purchased chicks from another breeder and drove nearly 5 hours to pick them up.

Out of 20 chicks it looks like I might have 4 girls. That's the way my chicken luck went all year.

I'll try and get some pictures of garden happenings this weekend, if it doesn't actually snow like they are saying it will.....