I know these are not chickens, but...

These are the kids we helped deliver. Who couldn't love these little ones??? I am sure that at some point we will have some goats on our own farm! These live at the Turtle Haven Dairy Goat farm in Brown County, IN.

Bad hair and disco boots! (AKA Polish and Silkies!)

It isn't easy being this beautiful! These gals (they are all supposed to be pullets - we'll see...) were born on April 13, 2008.

Some of the chickens (born Feb 10, 2008)

They are getting sooooo big!

Polish and silkies!

On April 16 we welcomed 5 Silkies and 5 Polish chicks to the fold.



They were really tired when we got them home...



But unfortunately the little white crested black Polish chick (the black one with the yellow poof head in the video above) died the next morning. We have no idea why. RIP little one... We buried her behind the barn next to gimpy. So out of 37 chicks and 2 poults we have lost 2 chicks. We are going to make a trade with our handy man (who converted the barn into a chicken coop) for a couple baby ducks in the near future.

Turkeys (a little late on the posting, though...)

Well, with the end of the semester I have not had a chance to post anything here for a long time.

Many things have changed around here. We have added 2 Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys to the mix. They are amazing creatures! They love to follow us everywhere and will even try to dart out the door if you are not careful! At this point they are about 6 weeks old.



They were such sweet babies (and they are sweet now, too!)

See? I am not the only chicken freak out there!

I came across this great blog and thought I would like to share it. I am not the only one who babies their chickens!

http://poultryheaven.com/poultryblog/

Plus, here is a great chance to watch me get pooped on by Pedro, the Arucana rooster. Enjoy!

The evolution of the coop, part 1

This is how the barn looked on the day we first saw the property.

And here it was the first winter we lived here...

And then we decided to cut down a tree next to the barn so it wouldn't blow over (the base was almost rotted through) and while we were at it we knocked down the old corral and made a pile where wildlife could live.

And then we decided to get chickens... So we cleaned up the scrap pile and planned an outdoor barnyard. We even cut a door in the barn for the chickens to come in and out...

It seemed like a big area for the chickens (at the time...)

We even left the stump outside the door for them to play on...

Here you can see the chicken door from inside the coop...

Here is the rest of the barn, when standing inside the coop.

And here is looking toward the coop area from the front of the barn.

This is an old box we had left in the barn from a previous owner. It made great next boxes and saved us a fortune! We had no idea how expensive commercially made next boxes are!

Here is Phil Brown, of Brown's Diversified Services, standing in front of the nest boxes. Phil is our friend and handyman and without him we would not have a chicken coop or barnyard! Thanks Phil!

The completed nest boxes, minus the ledges and perches.

Here is the original roosts we built. We have had to redesign the roosts because this corner of the barn floods when it rains. There will be pictures of the new roosts and coop configuration later...

Here is the other side of the coop. You can see the board over the chicken door on the right side.

And here are the chicks in the coop on the first day. They were almost 4 weeks old when they moved to the barn.