Chickens Everywhere!

I know my family members probably think I am crazy...moving to the country in the middle of nowhere, raising chickens, ducks and geese...having a large garden...husband working 6 days a week and me taking on almost everything by myself.  It is hard.  I am tired once the sun goes down, but...I am losing weight, gaining muscles and building up my stamina and feeling pretty good most of the time.

At the moment I have duck eggs in the incubator and added some chicken eggs, 3 plastic tubs in my front bathroom with chicks in them, 8 chicks on the back porch in a brooder and around 60 in the pens and coops out back.  My first chicks hatched back 2 days before Easter are pretty much grown, at least one has started laying eggs.  I will be happier when all of the hens start laying, I am excited to see what color of eggs I get from all the different breeds.  My Cream Legbars are suppose to lay blue eggs, I have Black Copper and Blue Splash Marans that are suppose to lay a chocolate brown egg, the Easter Eggers can lay blue, green, pink, brown and sometimes a lavender color...it will be a little while though...the other hens lay light brown and a few will lay white eggs.  Since some of my chickens are only 4 days old and most breeds of chickens don't start laying until at least 5 months old...I have a while to wait.

I only have two female Rouen Ducks, 1 male Rouen and 2 Khaki Campbell ducks...I have read they don't start laying until they are about 7 months old.  Both of my African Geese are males...we need to get a couple of females.  Today I stopped by the feed store that I got them from, I may be able to trade the lady who works there a male for a female, but we will have to see what hers look like, if they are not healthy, I won't do it.

Today we let the ducks and geese into the chicken area, we opened the front door to the coop and let the babies explore.  Geese are protectors and hung around the babies a bit, but they were mostly interested in the bugs and tall grass seed heads.  We are hoping that by letting the geese into that area, they will handle the tall grass and weeds so we can stop mowing in that area...we shall see.

It is fun interacting with all the different aged chickens, they all have different personalities.  At this point the youngest in the coop still look at me as their Mother for protection, it is funny how they hide behind me or swarm around my feet if they feel they are in danger.  My neighbors gave me a male and female Speckled Sussex pair, they have been watching after the babies in the coop when I am not around.  I have watched them through the window hovering around them while they were eating or drinking and they will attack other chickens who try and scare off the babies.  Ahhh, life as a chicken mommy...don't knock it if you haven't tried it...it is a form of therapy.