Farm Girl Friday - 4 April 2014

Farm Girl excitement this week!  The Farmer and the Farm Girly headed into town to M&R Feeds to pick up our new chicks.  I had to stay home because Daddy decided to leave in the middle of the bread baking.  I wish I had gone.  Ella jumped right into the pen with the layers and started grabbing them for Daddy to put into the boxes!  This from the girl that didn't want anything to do with chickens until a couple weeks ago.

2 different kinds of meat birds, 1-2 days old.  And...

5 turkeys!  We've never raised turkeys before so this will be fun.  All the chicks are so soft, you almost can't feel them.

Also picked up 40 new ready to lay hens (excuse the mess, pick-up day sort of snuck up on Colin and he had to just stick them in where there was room).  They are just 'regular' chickens.  My Harco Blacks don't come in the ready to lay size.  Hopefully, now that we have some new hens and that spring is finally coming, my egg production will improve.

Want to know how to annoy the Grandpa Farmer?  Say 'there is a chicken and rooster'!  It drove Grandpa crazy when Ella was little and most of her books said 'chicken and rooster'.  You know why, of course??  Because roosters are chickens!  All roosters are chickens but not all chickens are rooster.  The books should say 'hen and rooster'.  Sure can tell how far removed everyone is from their food production.

Remember the beautiful portraits of Ella from last fall?  Well Courtney saw the chicks on my FB page and wanted to use them for her Easter advertising.  She came up yesterday (got to be quick before they feather out and don't look cute).

I brought up (from the cellar) 3 of the chicks.  They were so calm and well behaved (no one pooped on anything/one).  Ella loved posing with them, but it took quite a while to convince her to bring the chick to her face.  She was afraid she'd be pecked.  

And as you can see, mud season has started.  It's not too bad yet because we're still quite cold.  But it's coming!