The New Residents of Simplicity Farms

Last May, my parents got chickens and a rooster. Long story short, one chicken wanted to be a mama. She hatched seven babies. Two of the babies were roosters and three roosters in a pen is about 2 too many. As a result, we decided to add chickens and a rooster to Simplicity Farms. My dad, my hubs, and my boys built the coop and transferred the chickens.  In true “Gramps and grandkids form” we ended up with most of the chickens and of course “Big Red” the nice, old rooster. So meet the cast…

This is Big Red. He is most definitely the nicest rooster I have been around. Not that I have a ton of exposure, however I have heard many stories about “mean roosters.” As I said, my boys worked their Gramps over when it came to which chickens we got.  They said to him, “Gramps, Grammy said that she wanted us to have a ‘safe rooster.’  She said we could have Big Red because he is nice to us.” I remind you, we, my mom, sister and I were out of town while the chicken/rooster transfer took place.

While the chickens were at my parents’ house we gave them all names. Some of the names make sense, while others are stretches of imaginations of little children.

Next meet “Pepper & Goldie” These are Jared and Parker’s chickens. They are the cutest little chickens with furry feet that let you hold them if you’re fast enough to catch them. There were only two of these little bantam like chickens. To the upper left is Pepper. For some reason, Pepper likes to hide out underneath the roost in the corner of the coop. The picture below is Goldie. Poor Goldie has been a frequent “target” of Big Red. You’ll notice she’s missing a lot of her comb.

There were only two of these adorable little chickens at my parents’ house and as the two boys would have it we ended up with both of them.

We now have a total of 13 hens and one rooster. We are getting between 6-8 eggs a day, and I haven’t quite narrowed it down to which chickens aren’t laying. And no! I don’t plan to eat the chickens that aren’t laying…. That’s just cruel. I mean, we named them for Heaven’s sake! We can’t go eating them, but those girls better get to laying!

Below Red, Chicky, Dusty, Penny, Callie, Honey and Daisy are enjoying bugs in the front yard.

There are a few more chickens in the flock that are a bit shy however we’ll definitely give them the “honorable mention.” There’s our baby of the flock is Angel, the new girl Butter, and Rusty who is a close look-a-like to Dusty but a touch more rust color, our black beauty Cosby, and last but not least, Captain Jack Sparrow...She is a hen, however she looks quite manly and has one bad eye, hence the Jack Sparrow... So that’s the gang. I’m very excited to have them on the farm. Occasionally Big Red gets a little confused and I question my judgment as he’s crowing at 0415 in the morning. All in all, I think we are all enjoying both the flock and the benefits of them…. I guess all of us except Libbie, who is pretty upset she’s stuck behind the fence with the chickens right on the other side.