If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you know that one of the weirdisms that I hold most dear is my love for my backyard chickens! We first became backyarders in 2017 — and have learned a ton since then. After losing our second round of hens to a neighborhood predator, we took several months off with the plan of hand-picking the perfect brood directly from a hatchery in northern Iowa. Can you say, ROAD TRIP??! (Side note: Hatcheries are happy to ship chicks to you, but have quantity minimums, which don’t usually align with city ordinance maximums.)
So, last Wednesday, we loaded our brood of five kids into the van and embarked on what should have been a six hour round-trip jaunt to Hoover’s Hatchery in Rudd, Iowa.
Eleven hours later we arrived home. Tired, Cranky. Tense. And generally just mad. mad. mad. But, you know, CHICKS!!!
You guys, I promise I had been checking the weather daily. And, I knew they were predicting a massive April blizzard, which was set to hit our area of Minnesota by Wednesday evening. Evening! I checked the weather in Rudd and it was totally just supposed to rain. Well, you know how this is teeing up, right? A few hours into our journey the rain turns to sleet; the roads are fine one mile and glare ice the next; the semi directly in front of our car begins to fish-tail. My husband begins to regret ever saying “I do.” Not. Good. A thirty-mile stretch of road in southern Minnesota took us several hours to traverse; we saw dozens of cars off the road, including several semis; but eventually the sleet turned back to rain and we made it to Hoover’s to pick up our baby girls:
- 1 Americana (Easter Egger)
- 1 Calico Princess
- 1 Cinnamon Queen
- 1 Prairie Bluebell Egger
- 1 Salmon Faverolles
- 1 Sapphire Gem
One week later and they are already feathering out and growing so fast. In a few weeks, we’ll move them from our small brooder in the house to our larger brooder, which we keep in our insulated garage. And, a few weeks after that we’ll be moving them into our coop — with an uber fortified, keep-out-neighborhood-mutts, Fort Knox style run. But, don’t worry, it will also be totally cute. Stay tuned for further chickerific updates and a summer filled with #henzen!
Are you a backyard chicken farmer? Show me your babies and coops in the comments below or on my Facebook page!
