Rainy days and chickens

It's been raining and snowing and sleeting and hailing here all day long. It's just pure ugly! We even actually have snow that stuck! Driving was more like hydroplaning! Not fun. Luckily by the time I had to drive my school bus route this afternoon, it was pretty much melted on the roads from the rain.

If I get a bee in my bonnet about something, I just can't seem to let it lie! Thanks to Malc and Dawn talking about having chickens and majorly enabling me, I decided I want some!! Yesterday I made a phone call to our village clerk and asked him if there were any ordinances against having chickens in the village. He said not that he knew of and he knew of neighbors of mine (and his) who have a pair of pet geese and another one who has a pot-belly pig!! I didn't know anything about them, but he said they keep them pretty much under wraps!!

Anyway, he even said he had raised chickens in his basement for his daughters science fair project. He doesn't strike me as the type...rather hoity toity... and he lives in one of those fancy-schmancy homes!! Go figure. He said they ended up with 5 live chickens after starting with 30 eggs that they incubated and hatched. He said as long as I didn't have a noisy rooster and as long as the neighbors don't complain, we should be fine. So....ta daaaaa...I'm getting half a dozen chicks!

We are getting egg-layer breeds and are in the process of planning the little coop that we'll put my old garden shed. We'll build them a chicken tractor and that will be about as "free-range" as they'll be able to get. I have a privacy fence around my rose garden, but chickens can fly and I hate to clip their wings and I hate even more seeing a hawk swoop down and get one of them!

The breeds I want to get are Araucana, they're the ones that lay green or blue eggs... Gold Comet or Gold Star which are sex-link chickens. That means the female chicks are gold colored and the males are white. Since I want all hens, this will make it easy to get hens for sure. Sexing baby chicks isn't easy! The other type I love are Buff Orpingtons. They are so big and fluffy and cuddly! Click on the name to check out the hen at that website! I wouldn't mind getting a couple Wyandottes or Barred Rock just because they are so beautiful! But I have to be careful with what I want...I can only have 6 chicks because of the space I have.

We're going to call the hatchery that's about an hour and a half drive away from us and see if they would let me pick up some chicks since I hate having them shipped! It will be a nice little day trip and maybe they'll let me get just a half dozen instead of the 25 minimum most hatcheries want you to order. And maybe they'll let me pick and choose the breeds I want. I can order a minimum of 6 from our farm store but they all have to be the same breed. I would like a colorful flock...IF you can call 6 chickens a flock!

I'm not excited about the weather...but I'm sure looking forward to building a coop and having chickens! Thanks for the enabling Malc and Dawn!