13 week Pullets' Flock to be trimmed

 A mostly positive outcome this year with the new flock of pullets.  I've sold the majority, and held back a few of each of the breeds that now are going up for sale.  The one disappointment was the number of roosters from the Lavender Orpington group.  That's partly on me. Thankfully, the sold ones were all females so I did good on finding the females early.  But, in the end, I only had one female left over along with seven roosters of the Orpingtons meaning that I only had five females of that breed, to begin with. 

This new hatchery does not gender the Orpington chicks, plus over charged me for the breed at the start.  When I checked back online in March, the price per chick had dropped by $2/chick.... soooooo...... I will not purchase that breed from them in the future.  However, for the most part, I had no deformed chicks this year,  That is a win. I did, however, get a rooster in the Barred Rock group. So, all in all, I did end up with eight roosters along with fifty two pullets.... I lose money on the roosters because, even though they eat more food than pullets, I can barely sell them for the price I paid for them as chicks.  I end up giving them away, actually.  Considering I pay the higher price per chick for females to begin with, well.... Roosters are a pain in the...... But don't get me wrong, this year was WAY better  than last. 

The chick brooder sales were better this year, also, and I only need to sell a few more to whittle down to my "over the winter" flock.  I just won't have any Lavender Orpingtons, once again. I will have have two, to four, of the following breeds; Barred Rock, Steel Blue Novagen, Gold Comet, Amber Links and Easter Eggers. 

Better Luck 2026?

With all the turmoil and loss of chicks last year, we changed up a few things. 1) Found a hatchery closer to home for less travel/delivery issues to contend with. 2) Added a new top to the transition coop for hopefully, fewer weather issues. 3) Watching the ducks' pen more frequently because of a hawk attacking Diego this year. 4) Not raising broilers this year.  5) Pushed back the chick starting time a couple of weeks in hopes of not having to deal with extreme cold temps at the start.  Chick delivery was the first week of March, and this flock will be six weeks old next week.  Ready to go outside next week. 

We originally started last fall with about 15 hens retained from the tragic delivery group of March 2025. We kept them in one pen, apart from the younger May pullets. The March layers were a rough, rag tag group. They were less than cohesive.  All winter long,  I kept giving away a few more trying to find a cohesive flock. But as the numbers continued to dwindle, the aggression did not subside. Because of the aggression, I had few consistent layers in that group. I finally sold the last five in February.  On the other hand, and in a separate pen, the 18 that I retained from my May flock start over has been very solid.  Great layers, and very minimal aggression. I have to assume that the trauma of the delivery last year really set that entire first group back in a bad way. 

Winter was not as cold or destructive this year. Definitely wet with lots of atmospheric rivers pounding the Pacific NW, but the water flooding has been nominal for us. Thankfully. Only had one flooding incident with about 4 inches of water surging into the garage.  Picked up an extra water pump to help reduce that from happening again. 

I have my tomato starts going, and plan to keep most of our garden focus on easy plants this year. 

Photos below: Chicks during human socialization time in their play pen in the garage, new vinyl roofing on the transition pen, ducks are 4 years old now and great foragers, plus photos of our current flock of egg layers. 

Still Pulleting Along into Summer

The chicks we received in March are still not starting to lay even though many look like they should be laying eggs.  Unless something is going on that is either preventing them from laying eggs, or is stealing the eggs, it is not clear. It could simply be that the trauma from the shipping and the extreme loss of life had delayed their development.  Not sure.  But, yah, I am at a loss to explain.  

This year, we only sold half the number of young pullets that we sold last year.  Granted, we are planning on keeping more for ourselves, but after the initial March group, we had a really difficult time selling the May group. So, even though I had more reserved to receive mid-July, I cancelled that order.  It is not worth the amount of work to get those sold. I have three pullets left to sell, and three roosters. Oh Boy! 

All together, we plan to keep close to 30 hens this year.  So we are trying to revamp the transition coop, the one I call the Grow Out coop, since we put the pullets in that coop when they are ready to be outside. 

We are trying to figure out a way to insulate a roosting area for them and protect it better. 

The flock that we had in there all last winter did fine but we did have to bring those birds into the garage a few days when things got too cold and/or windy.  They did well in there, for the most part, so I'm not too worried about doing it a second year.  However, the young pullets tore holes in the covers when roosting, and basically created sky lights and extra ventilation.  I now have the areas where they poked holes, covered with a large mesh panels, that they should not be able to get their beaks through to damage the new tarps, when we have the time and energy to put new tarps on. But, we are hesitant to do any of that until we have some PVC roof panels to put over their new roosting area. It's a project that is going to take some time. 

I had a nesting box plan that I had hoped to use in that coop, but things change, and so the idea got revamped.  We are trying to do things on the cheap. So some old cherry tree branches were utilized as roosting bars and perches. 

The May pullets that we are keeping are in, what we call, the Double Decker Pull Pen.  It's one of the pens that we use when raising meat birds to move them across the field on a daily basis. They are still small enough to stay in there for a few more weeks. Then we need to get them moved into the Grow Out coop and the older March pullets moved into the main "Mansion" coop.  We had hoped to start selling the layers by this time, but without new layers, we really can't start to clear out the main coop..... Ugh! Plans, Pullets and Problems. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicks, Cornish Cross, and Layers. Oh My!

We've been busy chick rearing. The first flock of pullets are almost layers now at 13 weeks, outside in their temporary home.  We did end up with two roosters.  Both are Welsummer.  I'm sure I can rehome one rooster.  The other rooster is a dwarf.  Not sure there will be a new home for him to go to. 

Mid April, the 30+ Cornish Cross rooster chicks showed up.  One had splay leg that we caught early in the first week.  We were able to hobble his legs together to bring the one "lazy" leg back underneath his body in alignment with the other. Took about a week of this, and readjusting for his growth to get the hip to grow stronger.  So far, he is doing great.  The CX are all out on pasture now.  Hoping the better weather holds out. Not too hot, not to wet, and not too windy. They should be ready for us to start processing in about two more weeks. 

In the meantime, we picked up 30+ more day-old layer chicks the first week of May. They are doing well.  About three weeks in, I discovered that one has scissor beak (cross beak).  It is pretty pronounced but she seems quite capable of eating and drinking.  She is a pushy little gal, if she is a gal.  Fingers crossed.  I really don't need another rooster that I can't get rid of. This group is mostly Delaware, some Lavender Jersey Giant, Americana (a slightly different version of Easter Egger), and a few Amberlink. 

The plan is to rehome about 15 of these newest chicks, and keep the rest for a secondary flock over the winter. That will give us two flocks, each with about 15 layers, We still sell farm direct eggs in the neighborhood, and with the price of eggs in the grocery stores, our customer base keeps growing.  I sense that once people realize how much better fresh eggs taste, they keep coming back.  The 13 hens we currently have, can't keep up with the weekly egg demand. 

And this is the Scissor Beak with a friend.