And just like that, the flock has doubled!

I’ve posted a few ISO’s (In Search Of) on various chicken and farm groups in the past few weeks. I would explain that we were building our coop and looking for some young hens. Anyone? Anyone? I’d get one, maybe two responses, usually from chicken breeders that were 4, 5, or more hours away. Sadly, none of those responses materialized for me.

Well with the coop finished, time to post again. I posted a couple more pleas yesterday. The coop is finished, and we need more birds! My friend, Phoenix, suggested I add pictures of the coop because people want to know where their birds are gonna live. Taking that advice, I posted a photo of Cluckingham Palace.

Annnd… I got about 30+ responses. I was flooded with chicken offers, even an offer of “I don’t want money, I just want them to have a happy life!”, as well as a bunch of comments on how nice the coop is, and an offer to hire my husband. He’s not for hire btw, he’s really, really glad the building is done and I don’t think he wants to do another one any time soon.

But more importantly, I found some pretty chickens an hour away, from a very nice lady named Shannon. She breeds chickens including some rare breeds, and had some 3-4 month old girls ready to go. Yesterday, she sent me photos and told me all about them and how this one or that one isn’t quite what they were bred for. Their coloring is “off”, or other things. I don’t care, I’m not looking for show birds, I’m looking for birds to love. As long as they’re hens, they are welcome in Cluckingham Palace! We made a deal and she offered to deliver them today. I said that would be awesome, and since I was excited, I half jokingly said “I’ll come get them right now if you let me!” And so that’s just what we did.

Here they are this morning having breakfast! Welcome to your new home girls!!

I haven’t gotten any really good pics of them yet, so here are the photos from the breeder:

Silver Dorking. She’s the biggest and will still get much bigger. Dorkings are a rare breed from England, lay medium size creamy colored eggs, and have a 5th toe.

Speckled Sussex. Her speckling will fill in as she gets older. Good layers of large light brown eggs.

English Isabel Standard. Her coloring didn’t turn out how the breeder hoped, so she’s considered “leaky” and I got her at a discount. I dunno what leaky color means, but she’s adorable and wears fancy pants and has feathered feet!

Red Frizzle/Swedish Flower cross. FLUFFEH FEATHERS! Frizzles have a genetic trait that cause the feathers to curl.

Red Smooth Frizzle/Swedish Flower cross. Sometimes the curled feathers don’t happen, as in this case, a smooth frizzle. But y’all, this girl is soooo sweet.

That last one might be my favorite. She is a love bug and a keeper! They’re all sweet and have been handled daily, and way friendlier than my chicks, but this little girl is the sweetest of them all. She had a broken toe, and it has healed crooked, but it doesn’t seem to bother her, and if it doesn’t bother her, it doesn’t bother me!

You can see her little crooked toe here. It’s ok, I know this one is special.

They have all been treated and had all their vet care, but the five of them are in the service room of the coop, quarantined from the others. I’ll keep them there for a few weeks just to be safe. In the meantime, they can meet the others through the fence so that when they are allowed into the main coop area, they’ll already be acquainted. None of them are laying eggs yet, so we have plenty of time.

Speaking of eggs, y’all, I’m gonna get really good at cooking eggs. I’ll be like Bubba in Forest Gump. We got deviled eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs, omelettes, egg drop soup, eggs benedict, egg salad, scrambled eggs, egg sandwich, egg in a basket, scotch egg… etc. And cake.

With 10 hens, we’re gonna be looking at an average of 3-4 dozen eggs a week. The chicks are leghorn chickens, and they are like the superhero of egg layers, they lay an average of 300 eggs a year. Each. The 5 of them could give us more than 2 dozen a week. The new girls vary in their egg laying, but all in all, we’re gonna have A LOT OF EGGS, and all my friends and family will also be getting eggs. You get a dozen. And you get a dozen. Everybody gets a dozen! We don’t expect any eggs for a couple more months yet, but around Aug/Sept... boom EGGS FOR EVERYONE.

And.. uh, we still have room for more chickens. Good thing too, because I still need a couple of Silkies.. aka muppet chickens. And then that’s it… until I see a cute girl that I have to have. I dunno how many I’ll end up with. I make no promises. Chickens are freaking cute. 🐓