Laying Hens; The 2021 Edition
February 15, 2021 (Monday) - I have wanted laying hens for as long as I can remember. The things is, nobody else in the family even remotely considered wanting one as I had an older sister that was terrified of birds and a dad who won’t eat anything egg related (unless you hide it!). To say that I was a tad bit opportunistic to convince my family we needed laying hens when fears of food reliability hit mid-March 2020 as the severity of the pandemic loomed in front of us is pretty accurate.
While I have always been extremely inclined to homestead life due to a Laura Ingalls Wilder book club series growing up, I think you could pinpoint the start of all things Homesteader for me when I began to be very conscientious about eating homemade. For the past two years, I have made virtually all of my pasta and breads, a big thanks to a sourdough starter gifted to me by my future mother-in-law.
Having worked at a farm store during the craziness of “the chicks are here” time period, I wasn’t too inclined to get chicks knowing that they would take four plus months before they started laying. I definitely didn’t have the time for that because I wanted nothing more than to be able to cook with those eggs the next day so I sourced a set of six yearling chickens that were needing homes.
And then, in a weird twist of events, I was surprised when first my dad and then my mother, individually, approached me and said, “Is eight enough? Should we have a dozen?”
I capitalized, always the opportunistic one, and ordered five additional chickens from the feed store. While I had wanted Rhode Island Reds, I had been surprised that the waitlist was already several deliveries long for my feed store. Checking some online research, I opted to go for Novogens and I am so glad I did as the RIR pair that I had received had had a nasty big hen named Big Red that I’m pretty sure wanted to end me.
And then, near the end of summer, I got a message from the lady I had purchased the first set from that they were wanting to travel during the fall and needed to re-home their remaining hens. I was more than happy to add the four additions (I told my parents two) and now we have 14 laying hens in our coop.
Current Hen Inventory
Three Rhode Island Reds
Two Buffed Orpintons
Two Australorps
Three Ameracaunas
Four Novogens
2021 Additions
It seems as if the rest of my family has gotten into this crazy thing called “chicken math.” Knowing that there is a market for older birds and being set up with a juvenile coop and run, as well as our upgraded laying hen coop, we decided to invest in additional chicks to be able to sell colorful egg layers! On Tuesday this week I will pick up the first sixteen chicks from our local hatchery, Jenks Hatchery.
We have purchased over 600 birds from them in the past year, more on that later, and have been extremely happy with the care and customer service. The process is quite simple and we have a brooder at our home, not my parents, that they will live in for the first month or so. I am especially thankful for this brooder house considering the current stormy and icy winter conditions we have been having.
I also am purchasing some chicks that have been locally raised and hatched. This will be my first time doing so but the breeder came highly recommended by a variety of people across the country and it seems that I am lucky to have them in my backyard. I will be picking these chicks, aged the same, up later this week - a slight change in the original order plan.
Harsh winter conditions have also been impacting our friends in the south and this hatch group was supposed to be shipped to Texas. Because of the cold weather, we are going to take this hatch instead as they want to ensure the birds don’t get cold and get delivered on time.
Eight ColorPak Crosses (also known as Easter Eggers and crosses around Ameracaunas)
Eight Dark Copper Marans (for dark brown eggs)
Eight to Twelve Olive Eggers