Chickens can sometimes get a bad reputation on a farm. Some may consider them the most lowly farm animal or the small farm "starter" animal. Many think chickens are mean and destructive to gardens and plants. Chickens are often snubbed for having smelly, dirty coops.

 

While all of the above, can be true, we LOVE our chickens! We have Barred Rocks, Blue-Laced Golden Wyandottes, Buff Orpingtons, Blue Plymouth Rocks. Some breeds are definitely friendlier than others, but with lots of handling all of our birds are gentle and sweet.

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Like many farms, we have two uses for our birds; meat and eggs. We have a lovely little flock of egg-laying hens. We chose them for their friendliness, egg-laying capacity, their winter-hardiness, and ability to free-range. Our hens mature around 19-25 weeks and begin laying at that time. While generally hens decrease laying in the winter when the days get dark, ours tend to produce a fair number. We have found that good, clean water we are able to keep a steady supply of eggs even through the winter.

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We used to raise Freedom Rangers for our meat birds. This is NOT a heritage breed, as much as I hate to say it, but we had to start somewhere. We actually did like this slower growing bird fairly well. The biggest issue we have is that we cannot reproduce them ourselves. We don't want to be dependent on hatcheries every year to renew our supply of day-old chicks. That's why this  spring, we are working on hatching chicks from our own eggs. It will be a new challenge for sure!