Backyard Beginnings

New Nest Boxes! They were made this past weekend from some leftover scrap wood (untreated). This is Diamond; our resident super-broody White Phoenix Hen (she has hatched our multiple batches of chicks - partially because she is so sneaky at stashing eggs until it is too late to try to stop her). Her twin is Daisy; who is rarely broody and also has golden eyes instead of brown!

Fun Fact: Phoenix Chickens do not molt their tail feathers! The roosters can have tails reaching 3 feet or more!

Video of Our Chickens yesterday 🥰🐥🐔

Kelsey Janes on TikTok We still have chickens!

Wow, it's been a long time since updating. Since February we've had a crazy bunch of things happen in the family. Including the birth of our second child!

But as far as our Backyard Broods, we added some Lavender chicks earlier this year. And have 3. And we have had 2 hens surprise us with hatching out 2 batches of chicks in the last 3 weeks.

The first was our White Phoenix who hatched the Lavender Orpingtons eggs we purchased last year. She hatched a small brood of black chicks that are White Phoenix crossed with a Lavender Orpington roo (aren't chicken genetics crazy?). She's got 3 of them and they are 3 weeks old now.

The second was our unexpected LARGE hatch by one of our Lavender hens from last year. There are 11 LAVENDER CHICKS AND 3 BLACK CHICKS (which are more likely to be the cross of our Rhode Island Red and the Lavender Orp Roo, since the big hens bunch their eggs and the small ones bunch their own elsewhere.)

The large brood of 14 were hatched on the 2nd and 3rd of July and made their first venture outside the shed/coop this afternoon.

Nearly all of them will end up re-homed at a later date. I've got our 4 week old human baby to handle along with our 2 year old!