Chick Day - Late

It was chick day here this morning when my order of a dozen Gold Star laying hens and two dozen Cornish broilers showed up at the post office. Most people have the common sense to get their new chicks in the spring. I thought we had plenty of chickens and decided to skip a year. Then the coyotes, raccoons and owls made their dinner plans.

Most of the summer we weren't shutting the door on the chickens at night. They go to bed way later than we do in the summer and it was just too much of a rodeo trying to herd them into their room every night.

The raccoons eventually caught on to our security breach and decided it was fun to go in at night and terrorize them. Owls probably took some during the day when they go out to forage in the pines and the last straw was having coyotes here in the yard at night howling and yipping. Egg production has gone to one or two a day. Horrors! I am going to have to buy eggs at the grocery store!

I talked Don's cousin Clint into taking a dozen broilers in exchange for his help on processing day (he and Don can decapitate---I don't like that part). It will take only seven to eight weeks of growth to have chickens for the freezer and probably four months before the Gold Stars start laying.