If I were to ask you, “whats the first farm animal homesteaders usually get,” what would you say? Chickens, right? For folks hoping to get away from commercially raised and processed foods, chickens are an easy start.
Don’t be fooled, chickens are a gateway farm animal! Anyone can feed hens and grow tomatoes. They’re very useful little dinosaurs.
You heard me, I called chicken dinosaurs. Have you seen their legs? How amazing would it be if the worlds largest dinosaurs had been feathered?
We have raised anything from cornishX to random mixes selected by a mail order hatchery to carefully bred purebreds from small breeders. As soon as we got moved this year, we couldn’t wait to start our new flock. This time we went with a great local breeder and picked up a mix of breeds:
Lavender Orpingtons, Blue English Orpingtons, White Orpingtons, and Splash Orpingtons. Blue Copper and Black Copper Marans. Cream and White Sport Legbars.
Legbars lay blue eggs, how cool is that? They really aren’t big enough to raise for meat, so we just have a few of these guys for fun.
Orpingtons are my favorite breed of chicken. They’re typically docile and easy going. They’re prolific egg layers and are a heavy breed, so they’re great for meat as well. Orpingtons are good mothers and often very broody. We appreciate this quality for helping us raise a few clutches of chicks to replenish our layers and raise meat for our family.
We started our chicks in the barn, but we couldn’t wait to get them into their coop! Predators are a big concern with chickens. While we raise our next Gampr to guard our birds, we wanted to make sure we made our coop and run as predator proof as possible. We used 6 foot welded kennel panels. We laid wire under the panels and weighed it down with huge chunks of old concrete. Next, we’ll add a cover over the run!